Take a look at this week’s updates to Dragonflight Beta:

END-GAME REALM – VALDRAKKEN

• Profession vendors and trainers have now been spawned in Orgrimmar and Stormwind.
• A PvP Vendor now exists in Orgrimmar and Stormwind that sells players PvP trinkets.

CLASSES

• NEW TALENT SYSTEM
  • Developers’ note: We have had to add a lot of extra spells and modifiers with the talent system, which means a lot of new names also needed to be added. While adding these new spell names we also made a pass on the names of almost every talent, and several of them are having their name changed. We tried to avoid changing terms people are very familiar with, we aren’t looking to rename core building blocks of classes or specs. Spells like Fireball, Mortal Strike and Rejuvenation are not suddenly going to be changing names. Several talents with modifiers to your spells may see some names change to get a better identity and cohesive feel with all of the other spells and talents available to your class or spec.
  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Frost
      • Anticipation – Renamed to Coldthirst.
      • Shattering Strike – Renamed to Shattering Blade.
      • Obliterate – Damage increased 10%.
      • Improved Obliterate – Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
      • Rime – Increases Howling Blast damage by an additional 75%.
      • Improved Rime – Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
      • Horn of Winter – Swapped positions with Cold Heart (Available after Improved Rime).
      • Cold Heart – Swapped positions with Horn of Winter (Available after Improved Obliterate).
      • Enduring Strength – Now has a connection leading to Inexorable Assault.
      • Frostwhelp’s Aid – Now has a connection to Empower Rune Weapon.
      • Obliteration – Fixed an issue with Glacial Advance not granting Killing Machine.
      • Runic Command – Now increases Maximum Runic Power by 10/20 (was 5/10).
    • Unholy
      • Festering Strike – Renamed to Improved Festering Strike.
      • Plaguebearer – Renamed to Vile Contagion.
  • DRUID
    • Balance
      • Stellar Inspiration – Starsurge has a 10% chance to apply Stellar Flare to the target. Starfall has a 15% chance to extend Moonfire and Sunfire by 4 seconds.
      • Orbit Breaker – Every 20th Shooting Star calls down a Full Moon at 80% power upon its target.
      • Oneth’s Clear Vision – Renamed to Starweaver.
      • Timeworn Defender – Renamed to Rattle the Stars.
      • Incarnation: Chosen of Elune – No longer grants Haste. Must have Celestial Alignment talented to gain Haste benefit.
      • Eclipses no longer occur in alternation or reduce the cast times of Wrath or Starfire.
      • Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Arcane spells by 15%.
      • Solar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Nature spells by 15%.
      • Shooting Stars has an increased chance to occur and now has a chance to trigger from Stellar Flare damage.
      • Mastery: Total Eclipse has been removed.
      • Mastery: Astral Invocation has been added – Your Nature spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Sunfire. Your Arcane spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Moonfire.
    • Feral
      • Ferocious Frenzy – Renamed to Rampant Ferocity.
      • Bite Force – Renamed to Lion’s Strength.
      • Piercing Claws has been renamed to Primal Claws – No longer grants Critical Strike. Each point now grants a 10% chance for combo point generators to generate an extra combo point.
      • Improved Bleeds has been renamed to Merciless Strikes – Now increases Swipe damage against bleeding targets by 10% (was 20%).
      • Protective Growth – Damage reduction increased to 5% (was 3%).
      • Tireless Energy – No longer grants Haste. Points now increase maximum Energy by 30/60 and passive Energy regeneration by 10%/20%.
      • Berserk – Now causes Swipe to generate an additional combo point during Berserk.
      • Eye of Fearful Symmetry has been renamed to Tiger’s Tenacity – Changed to a 1 point talent. Now causes Tiger’s Fury to grant 1 combo point after your next 3 finishers (was 1 finishing move restores 2 combo points).
      • Frantic Momentum – Changed to a 2-point talent. Now grants a 3%/6% chance per combo point spent to increase your Haste by 10% for 6 seconds.
      • Cat’s Curiosity – Now recovers 25% of energy cost for abilities it affects for each point (was 15%).
      • Convoke the Spirits – Can no longer cast Tiger’s Fury.
      • Soul of the Forest – Now grants 3 Energy per combo point spent (was 5).
      • Rip and Tear – Applying Rip to a target applies a Tear that deals 6% of the new Rip’s damage over 6 seconds (was a flat amount).
      • Unbridled Swarm – Now a single point talent and grants a 60% chance for swarms to split.
      • Ashamane’s Guidance – Now also reduces Convoke the Spirit’s cooldown by 50%.
      • New Talent: Relentless Predator – Reduces Energy costs of Ferocious Bite by 20%. This includes both the base cost and the additional Energy that can be spent for bonus damage.
      • Scent of Blood – Removed.
    • Restoration
      • Cenarius’ Guidance is now implemented – During Incarnation: Tree of Life, you gain Clearcasting every 6 seconds. The cooldown of Incarnation: Tree of Life is reduced by 1.5 seconds when Lifebloom blooms or 1 second when Regrowth’s initial heal critically strikes. Convoke the Spirits’ cooldown is reduced by 50% and its duration and number of spells cast is reduced by 25%. Convoke the Spirits has an increased chance to use an exceptional spell or ability.
      • Unbridled Swarm – Now a 60% chance to trigger by default.
      • Verdancy – Increased healing by 60%.
      • Dreamstate – Now reduces cooldowns by 12 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Grove Tending – Increased healing by 75%.
      • New connections below gate 2.
      • Stonebark/Improved Ironbark choice node – Moved to row 6.
      • Rampant Growth – Moved to row 7.
      • Regenerative Heartwood – Moved to row 7.
      • Nurturing Dormancy – Moved to row 9.
      • Germination – Moved to row 10.
      • Unbridled Swarm – Now a 1-point node.
  • EVOKER
    • General
      • Hover – You may now finish your last cast while moving without being interrupted when Hover ends.
    • Class Tree
      • Rescue – Renamed to Verdant Embrace. Now castable on yourself.
      • Fly With Me – Renamed to Rescue.
      • Ruin – Renamed to Tyranny.
      • Tyranny – Renamed to Spellweaver’s Dominance.
      • Suffused With Power – Renamed to Instinctive Arcana.
      • Pyrexia – Renamed to Foci of Life.
      • Might of the Aspects – Renamed to Titanic Wrath.
      • Continuum – Renamed to Eye of Infinity.
    • Devastation
      • Scintillation – Chance to occur increased to 15% (was 4/8%). Eternity Surge is launched at 30/60% power (was 100%).
      • Burnout – Can now stack twice.
  • HUNTER
    • Class Tree
      • Nesingwary’s Trapping Apparatus – Removed.
      • Serrated Shots is now where Nesingwary’s Trapping Apparatus was.
      • Wailing Arrow – Silence lowered to 3 seconds (5 seconds). Wailing Arrow also now clarifies it only silences non-player targets.
      • Sentinel Owl and its related choice node should be working.
      • Sentinel Owl and its choice node moved up 1 row.
      • Born to be Wild and Camouflage swapped spots.
      • Binding Shot has changed from an 8 second root to a 3 second stun.
      • New Talent: Entrapment – When your Tar Trap is activated, all enemies in the area are rooted for 4 seconds.
      • Improved Mend pet – Renamed to Wilderness Medicine.
      • Hunter’s Agility – Renamed to Hunter’s Avoidance.
      • Agile Movement – Renamed to Pathfinding.
      • Latent Poison Injectors – Renamed to Poison Injection.
      • In for the Kill – Renamed to Hunter’s Prey.
      • Qa’pla, Eredun War Order – Renamed to War Orders.
      • Flamewalker’s Cobra Sting – Renamed to Cobra Sting.
      • Rylakstalker’s Piercing Fangs – Renamed to Piercing Fangs.
      • Killing Blow – Renamed to Killer Accuracy.
      • Dead Eye – Renamed to Deadeye.
      • True Aim – Renamed to Target Practice.
      • Predator – Renamed to Flanker’s Advantage.
  • MAGE
    • Class Tree
      • Overflowing Energy has been reworked and implemented – Your spell critical strike damage is increased by 10%. When your direct damage spells fail to critically strike a target, your spell critical strike chance is increased by 2%, up to 10% for 8 seconds.
    • Arcane
      • Improved Arcane Barrage – Renamed to Arcing Cleave.
      • Conjure Mana Gem – Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
      • Impetus now has added functionality – If you were to gain an Arcane Charge while at maximum charges instead 10% Arcane damage for 10 seconds.
    • Fire
      • Flamestrike – Position swapped with Fervent Flickering.
      • Improved Flamestrike – Reduces Flamestrike’s cooldown by 1 second (was 0.5 seconds).
      • Phoenix Reborn – Now directly available after Improved Phoenix Flames (+1 Charge to Phoenix Flames). No longer has a connection from Firemind.
      • Pyroclasm – No longer has a connection from Phoenix Reborn or Tinder. Now has a connection from Firemind or Improved Phoenix Flames. Now has a leading connection to Controlled Destruction.
      • Master of Flame – Now directly available after Conflagration. No longer has a connection from Blaster Master.
      • Pyromaniac and Molten Skyfall selection node – Now has a connection from Blaster Master and Conflagration. Now has a leading connection to Fevered Incantation.
    • Frost
      • Everlasting Frost – No longer a choice node with Improved Blizzard. Now available directly below Flurry and has an added connection going to Ebonbolt and Frozen Touch.
      • Frostbite – Now has an added connection going to Bonechilling
      • Improved Blizzard – No longer a choice node with Everlasting Frost. Damaging an enemy with Blizzard reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb by 0.5 seconds (was 0.3 seconds).
      • Arctic Piercing has been redesigned and renamed to Piercing Cold – Now increases Frostbolt, Icicle, and Glacial Spike (if talented) critical strike damage by 20%.
      • Icy Veins – Base duration increased to 25 seconds (was 20 seconds).
      • Improved Icy Veins – Removed.
      • Slick Ice – No longer a choice node with Freezing Winds and now available directly after Icy Propulsion.
      • Freezing Winds – No longer a choice node with Slick Ice.
      • Perpetual Winter – Swapped positions with the Ebonbolt/Frozen Touch node.
      • Glacial Assault – Swapped positions with Deep Shatter.
  • MONK
    • Class Tree
      • Developers’ note: Several abilities have been renamed for additional clarity, and several balance-impacting bugs have been fixed. Thank you again for your feedback and reports in finding these bugs.
      • Chi Torpedo – Now correctly causes Chi Torpedo to replace Roll.
      • Roll (Talent) – Now correctly grants an additional charge of Roll.
      • Close to Heart – Now modifies base Leech instead of Leech from gear.
      • Generous Pour – Now modifies base Avoidance instead of Avoidance from gear.
      • Ferocity of Xuen – Now correctly grants 4% damage at rank 2.
      • Escape from Reality – Now correctly functions outside the Shadowlands. Value has been reduced to 25% increased Vivify healing per point.
      • Fatal Touch – Now correctly functions outside the Shadowlands. Value has been reduced to 45 seconds per point.
      • Fast Feet – Now correctly increases the damage of Spinning Crane Kick and scales per point invested.
      • Ironshell Brew – Now correctly grants Armor and Dodge.
      • Roll – Renamed to Improved Roll.
      • Provoke – Renamed to Hasty Provocation.
      • Touch of Death – Renamed to Improved Touch of Death.
      • Vivify – Renamed to Improved Vivify.
      • Fortifying Brew Upgrade (Armor/Dodge) – Renamed to Ironshell Brew.
      • Fortifying Brew Upgrade (Cooldown Reduction) – Renamed to Expeditious Fortification.
    • Mistweaver
      • Tea of Serenity – Thunder Focus Tea also grants Renewing Mist, Enveloping Mist, and Vivify 1 extra charge at random.
      • New connections/placement below gate 2.
      • Tea of Plenty – Now a choice node with Tea of Serenity.
      • Unison – Now a choice node with Restorative Proliferation.
      • Overflowing Mists moved to row 6.
      • Bountiful Brew/Attenuation choice node moved to row 9.
      • Peaceful Mending moved to row 9.
      • Tea of Plenty – Thunder Focus Tea also grants Renewing Mist, Essence Font, and Rising Sun Kick 1 extra charge at random. Removed Enveloping Mist and Vivify from proc list.
      • Zen Reverberation – Increased damage and healing to 70% (was 50%).
      • Jade Bond – Increased healing of Gust of Mist to 40% (was 25%).
      • Accumulating Mist – Increased damage and healing to 20% (was 15%).
    • Windwalker
      • Developers’ note: Players have offered feedback about the locations of Jade Ignition and Hit Combo, as the other talents surrounding and connecting to them are typically stronger in different situations than these effects (Hit Combo is surrounded primarily by AOE bonuses, Jade Ignition connected to mostly single-target focused effects). The positioning of these traits is intentional as a reward for investing in a particular path , as we would like players to diversify and consider the entire tree when developing talent builds.
        We’ve heard players desire to bring back Calculated Strikes, but would prefer to balance Spinning Crane Kick to be a button that’s viable without the aggressive compound scaling afforded by Calculated Strikes.
      • Flashing Fists – Tooltip now reflects active damage increase.
      • Touch of the Tiger – Rank values updated to 15%/30%.
      • Drinking Horn Cover – Corrected an issue causing Drinking Horn Cover to fail to extend correctly.
      • Thunderfist – Charges are now correctly applied when the updated version of Strike of the Windlord fires.
      • Meridian Strikes – Now correctly reduces upgraded versions of Touch of Death.
      • Bone Marrow Hops – Replaced with Dust in the Wind. Bonedust Brew radius increased by 50%.
      • Feathers of a Hundred Flocks – Renamed to Widening Whirl.
      • Hidden Master’s Forbidden Touch – Renamed to Forbidden Technique.
      • Keefer’s Skyreach – Renamed to Skyreach.
      • Corrected an issue where Fortifying Brew for Windwalker incorrectly had a shorter than intended base cooldown.
      • Power Strikes – No longer unintentionally grants Chi when the effect has not been consumed.
      • Developers’ note: We appreciate the many reports from PTR and Beta, and continue to fix bugs. Thank you for your reports – they’re very helpful in hunting down issues.
  • PRIEST
    • Class Tree
      • Moved a few nodes around in the tree.
      • Purify – Tooltip now conditionally updates when Improved Purify is talented.
      • Masochism renamed to Protective Light – Now triggers from Flash Heal casts instead of Shadow Mend.
      • Shadow Mend – Removed. Replaced with Improved Flash Heal.
      • Improved Flash Heal – Increases the healing done by Flash Heal by 15%.
      • Light’s Inspiration has been redesigned – Increases the maximum health gained from Desperate Prayer by 8%/15%.
      • Dominate Mind – Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 2 minutes).
      • Measured Contemplation (Runecarving Power) – Removed Shadow Mend from its tooltip.
    • Discipline
      • Shadowflame Prism – Renamed to Inescapable Torment.
      • Wrath, Unleashed – Now Wrath Unleashed.
      • Shadow Covenant – No longer references Shadow Mend.
    • Holy
      • Divine Word – Added a more detailed description of each effect in its tooltip.
      • Divine Word: Sanctuary – Number of targets healed is now capped to 6.
    • Shadow
      • Moved various nodes around in the tree.
      • Driven to Madness – Now affects both Void Eruption and Dark Ascension.
      • Void Origins – Now affects both Void Eruption and Dark Ascension.
      • Void Volley – Now affects both Void Eruption and Dark Ascension.
      • Dark Ascension – Slightly reworded the tooltip and aura tooltip. No functional changes.
      • Depth of the Shadows renamed to From Darkness Comes Light – Now affects Flash Heal instead of Shadow Mend.
      • Mind Spike – Damage modifiers from Shadowform, Voidform, and Mastery: Shadow Weaving now properly increase Mind Spike’s damage.
      • Shadowflame Prism renamed to Inescapable Torment – Now a 2-point talent for Shadow.
      • Monomania renamed to Screams of the Void and slightly redesigned – While channeling Mind Flay and Void Torrent the tick rate of your Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain your target is increased by 40%/80%. While channeling Mind Sear, the tick rate of your Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on all targets is increased by 40%/80%.
      • Derangement – Renamed to Encroaching Shadows.
      • Voidform – Increases spell damage by 10% (was 20%). No longer in the spell book by default. Now learned when talenting into Void Eruption.
      • Void Bolt – No longer in the spell book by default. Now learned when talenting into Void Eruption.
      • Dark Ascension – Cooldown reduced to 1 minute (was 2 minutes).
      • Void Eruption now has an additional effect – Each 25 Insanity spent during Voidform increases Voidform’s duration by 1 second.
      • Mind Flay: Insanity has been slightly redesigned – Devouring Plague transforms your next Mind Flay into Mind Flay: Insanity. Lasts 10 seconds (was 5 seconds). Mind Flay: Insanity deals 120% more damage than Mind Flay per tick, ticking 4 times over 3 seconds (reduced by Haste). Slows by 70% and generates 6 Insanity per tick.
      • Shadow Word: Pain – Resolved a tooltip issue causing the Insanity generated to only display when talented into Void Eruption.
      • Mind Flay – Resolved a tooltip issue causing the Insanity generated to only display when talented into Void Eruption.
      • Mastermind – Removed.
      • Fiending Dark – Removed.
  • SHAMAN
    • Class Tree
      • Call of the Elements – Renamed to Totemic Recall.
      • Improved Call of the Elements – Renamed to Call of the Elements.
    • Elemental
      • Primal Storm Elemental’s Eye of the Storm – Renamed to Tempest.
    • Enhancement
      • Selecting both Elemental Blast and Lava Burst will now cause Elemental Blast to replace Lava Burst, and Elemental Blast will have 2 charges.
      • Primal Lava Actuators – Renamed to Ashen Catalyst.
      • Witch Doctor’s Wolf Bones – Renamed to Witch Doctor’s Ancestry.
    • Restoration
      • Earthwarden – Renamed to Improved Earthliving Weapon.
  • WARLOCK
    • Destruction
      • Mayhem – Now implemented and updated slightly: Your single target spells have a 25% chance to apply Havoc to a nearby enemy for 5 seconds.
      • Known Issue: Duplicated spells from Mayhem have a chance to trigger Mayhem if Mayhem expires while they are in the air, which allows for Havoc to be applied to your current target.
      • Pandemonium – Tooltip updated. Functionality unchanged.
      • Rolling Havoc – Tooltip updated. Functionality unchanged.
      • Cry Havoc – Tooltip updated. No longer ignores the Havoc target when dealing damage.
  • WARRIOR
    • General Developer Notes
      • This week for the Class, Arms and Fury trees we’ve mostly been fixing errors and tweaking things. We’re happy with where these are at and don’t intend to make any large changes moving forward. Arms and Fury and various options within them seem to be preforming well and people are enjoying them, we’ll be monitoring feedback and tuning things where needed.
        This week, we’ve focused more on the Protection tree and provide more details on this below.
    • Class Tree
      • Bitter Immunity – Once again more easily available, but now no longer clears Bleeds.
      • Reinforced Plates – The armor values should now be correctly calculated.
      • Battle Stance – Now reduces the effects of Root and Snares by 10% (was 15%).
      • Berserker Stance – Now reduced the effects of incapacitating effects by 10% (was 15%).
      • Inspiring Presence – Tooltip updated to make its effect clearer.
      • Spear of Bastion – Now grants 20 Rage (was 25).
      • Elysian Might – Now extends the duration of Spear of Bastion by 2 seconds (was 4 seconds).
      • Piercing Verdict – Damage and Rage bonus increased to 50% (was 30%).
      • Endurance Training: Fury – Now increases Stamina by 5% and reduces the duration of moment impairing effects on you by 10%.
      • Endurance Training: Arms and Protection – Now increases Stamina by 5% and reduces the duration of Fear, Sap and Incapacitate effects on you by 10%.
      • Thunderous Roar – Now deals damage in a 12 yard radius (was a frontal cone) and also generates 10 Rage.
      • Shockwave – Now generates 10 Rage.
      • Avatar – Now grants 15 Rage (was 20).
      • Crushing Force: Protection – Tooltip should now correctly update granting 5% increased critical damage per rank.
      • Barbaric Training: Protection – Revenge damage reduced to 30% (was 40%).
    • Arms
      • Stormwall – Now has a lockout period of 1 second.
      • Dance of Death – Clarified tooltip to make it clear you are not required to get the killing blow.
      • Exploiter – No longer effects Cleave, the synergy here was odd and didn’t work in practice.
      • Fracture – Updated tooltip to not reference Thunderous Roar.
      • Bloodborne – No longer increased the damage of Rend’s initial strike.
      • Exploit the Weakness – Removed from the talent tree.
      • Deft Experience – Now grants 1% Mastery and increases Tactician’s chance to trigger by 0.5% per rank.
      • Rend – The initial strike of Rend’s damage has been increased to 64% damage (was 32%).
      • Massacre – Updated Massacre visuals.
    • Fury
      • Annihilator – Now generates 2 Rage per attacks.
      • Dancing Blades – Now triggers from procs correctly.
      • Annihilator – Can now be used with 2-handed weapons.
      • Rampage – Damage reduced to 206% (was 227%).
      • Hack and Slash – Was incorrectly triggering on every Rampage strike instead of casting Rampage. We like this functionality, so now Hack and Slash has a 20% chance with each Rampage strike to refund a charge of Raging Blow.
      • Storm of Steel – Now causes Ravager to generate 15 Rage per hit (was 10).
      • Critical Thinking – Now grants 1% critical strike chance per rank (was 1.5%) and the tooltip now correctly states that it affects Annihilator.
      • Annihilator, Slam, Thunderous Roar, Shockwave, and Odyn’s Fury should now gain extra Rage benefit from Recklessness.
      • Massacre – Updated Massacre visuals.
      • Wrath and Fury – Now increases Raging Blow’s damage by 10% (was 5%).
      • Slaugthering Strikes – Auras now display correctly for both Raging Blow and Annihilator, and it can now be triggered via Crushing Blow.
      • Bloodcraze – Can now be triggered via Bloodbath.
    • Protection Developer Notes
      • We’ve started to put more focus on the Protection tree this week and you’ll see a large update next week also.
      • We’re very happy with how Protection Warriors are playing, but they have been overperforming both in terms of survivability and damage, so we’ve made some tweaks to bring them more in line with the other tanking classes.
      • We don’t intend to make large structural changes to Protection Warrior’s trees, our goals for the next week are mainly around bug fixing, tuning and to make the bottom left and right sides of the tree more appealing.
      • We’ve made some changes to the baseline Vanguard ability to account for the large amount of survivability bonuses available in the talent tree.
    • Protection
      • Deep Wounds – Should now trigger Bloodsurge correctly.
      • Titanic Throw – Fixed an issue causing Titanic Throw to get the 100% bonus from Improved Heroic Throw twice.
      • Heroic / Titanic Throw – Now has a 3 second cooldown.
      • Auto-attack damage reduced by 20%.
      • Brace for Impact – Aura tooltip should now correctly reference Shield Slam. Now increases Shield Slams damage by 5% per stack (was 10%), but lasts for 15 seconds (was 9 seconds).
      • Spiked Shield – Now causes high threat.
      • New Talent: Dance of Death – If your Ravager helps kill an enemy your next Ravager lasts 2 seconds and deals 20% increased damage.
      • Champion’s Bulwark – Should now add to existing Shield Block durations.
      • Juggernaut – Has a maximum of 10 stacks for Protection specialization but last 20 seconds.
      • Massacre – Updated Massacre visuals.
      • Enduring Alacrity – Now grants 1% Haste per rank (was 2%).
      • Focused Vigor – Now grants 1% critical chance per rank (was 2%).
      • Vanguard – Increases your Stamina by 30% (was 45%), increases your Strength by 70% of your armor value (was 100%), and reduces damage you take by 5% (was 15%).
      • Revenge – Damage reduced to 53% (was 63%).
      • Shield Slam – Damage reduced to 80% (was 85%).
      • Punish – Shield Slam deals 10% increased damage (was 20%).
      • Best Served Cold – Revenge damage is now 10% (was 20%) and 30% when free (was 50%).
      • Unnerving Focus – Now grants 50% rage generation (was 60%).
      • Show of Force – Thunder Clap damage is now 20% (was 25%).
      • Booming Voice – Now generates 30 Rage (was 40).
      • Rend – Initial damage reduced to 32% (was 64%) and periodic damage reduced to 17% (was 23%).
      • Execute – Damage reduced by 8%.
      • Shield Charge no longer has a minimum range.

ELEMENTAL STORMS

• Elemental Storms have been temporarily disabled.
  • Developers’ note: The Elemental Storms that the Primalists are inflicting upon the Dragon Isles are a new feature that will be available when Dragonflight Season 1 starts and won’t be active when Dragonflight launches. This week we’ve disabled them to ensure we’re gathering accurate player feedback on the outdoor world during the initial weeks after Dragonflight’s launch.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• Developers’ note: Greetings Gladiators! With the end game realm on Beta that spun up last week and the beginning of more focused testing on max level PvP, we wanted to discuss some of our thoughts on crowd control in PvP going into Dragonflight.
  The amount of crowd control that classes have access to has progressively increased in the past few expansions; This will be even more prominent in Dragonflight with talent trees providing the option to spend talents points into heavy utility. We recognize that crowd control is a point of concern for players in PvP. We recently added a PvP talent, Precognition, to help casters deal with interrupts as another way to help players handle crowd control.
  Another mechanic we will be introducing that you will see in this week’s build is increasing the power of Gladiator’s Distinction, the PvP trinket 2-set bonus. In addition to its current effect of providing additional stamina and primary stat, the bonus will now also provide a 15% reduction of incoming crowd control effects. With this added built-in bonus, we will also be retiring the Relentless trinket and current versions of the trinket will have a maximum level of 60 requirement.
  We will be continuing to analyze and evaluate how overall crowd control plays in PvP throughout Beta. Additionally, we are discussing some other options for future patches to further address the concern of crowd control, one being adjusting the PvP duration on individual abilities that many have not been changed for years. We are interested to see your feedback on that proposal. For now, we think having a reduction in overall crowd control will help for a healthier state of PvP.
  Thank you again for your continued feedback*.** We’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on PvP related feedback over the next several weeks, so queue up Gladiators – we’ll see you in the arena!*
• Gladiator’s Distinction (Trinket Set Bonus) – Now provides 15% reduction to incoming crowd control effects in addition to existing effects.
• Trinkets with the Relentless effect are now capped at level 60. There are no plans for a Dragonflight Season 1 version of this trinket.

PROFESSIONS

• First time recipe crafts will now award experience points.
• Known Issues:
  • Knowledge spent on Specializations for Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, Engineering, and Enchanting has been removed in the process of fixing a larger issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

• NEW HUD UI
  • UI art updates:
    • Main Target Unit Frame (pending Minor Enemies)
      • Developers’ note: We have moved away from the silver dragon border for rare mobs and instead will rely on using an icon. The icon will be placed on the unit frame border and display on the map to better relate these two elements together.
    • Pet Frame
    • New tab art in UI panels
• Updated login screen
• Options Menu:
  • Added Interact Key toggle and keybinding
  • Added Action Targeting toggle
  • Added setting to adjust World Text size
  • Added tooltips to various options
  • Auto-loot option moved from Keybindings to Gameplay > Controls.
  • Various settings from the Raid Profile page are moved to the Interface page while some others are within the Edit Mode.
  • The outdated action bar names are now consistently labeled as Action Bar 1, Action Bar 2, etc.
  • Search results are a bit smarter and prioritizes exact matches to the top.
    • If no search results are found, it will now say no results found.
  • System section moved to the bottom of the list.
  • Right-clicking a keybind will remove the keybind.
• Added some new Exile’s Reach tutorial help tips.

Greetings Balance Druids,

In a future beta build, Balance Druids will receive an all-new talent tree but, in the meantime, we are excited to share a preview of what that new talent tree will look like. Our talent tree design philosophy has changed considerably over the course of Dragonflight’s development. Community feedback and the lessons learned through playtesting helped us identify good practices to follow when constructing a talent tree. Equipped with what we’ve learned, we set out to update Balance’s tree and bring it in line with our current design philosophy.

Connections

With this iteration of Balance’s talent tree, we wanted to increase the interconnectedness of the talent nodes to allow for easier access to different options across the tree. In addition, we wanted to avoid awkward positioning where it was mandatory to take a specific, unrelated talent to reach a desired, potentially gameplay altering, talent. Lastly, we wanted to avoid any situations where taking a talent would provide no benefit because a different talent wasn’t taken.

New Additions

Feedback indicated that there was a lack of new abilities making Shadowlands and Dragonflight Balance play very similarly. With this iteration, we have introduced new options for players to be excited about. Some of those new options:

• Umbral Embrace – Dealing Astral damage has a chance to cause your next Wrath or Starfire to become Astral and deal 50% additional damage.
• Wild Mushroom – Grow a magical mushroom at the target enemy’s location. After 2 sec, the mushroom detonates, dealing Nature damage and generating up to 20 Astral Power based on targets hit.
• Denizen of the Dream – Your Moonfire and Sunfire have a chance to summon a Faerie Dragon to assist you in battle for 30 sec.
• Sundered Firmament – Every other Eclipse creates a Fury of Elune at 25% effectiveness that follows your current target for 8 sec.

Starfall

We appreciate the community’s thoughts on our recent change to Starfall and agree with the sentiment: Starfall has a unique identity by being tied to the caster and we want to retain that identity. In the next Dragonflight update, you’ll see our latest iteration of Starfall:

• Starfall – Calls down waves of falling stars upon enemies with 40 yds, dealing Astral damage over 8 sec. Multiple uses of this ability may overlap.

Thank you for your patience as we worked on this latest iteration of the Balance talent tree. We’re excited to get it into your hands as soon as possible and can’t wait to see what builds the community will come up with!

Hello Evokers,

A quick note for today’s build: We’ve updated Soar to used a “bonus action bar” like Dragonriding Drakes do, allowing Surge Forward and Skyward Ascent to be dragged around on the action bar. New characters will automatically have the two abilities on the action bar when Soar is learned. However, existing characters will need to drag them out of the spellbook, under the General tab. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Good day Dragonriders!
We’ve noticed a lot of feedback around tutorials, dragon glyphs, and dragonriding skills and abilities, and are excited to provide these updates in today’s build.

Skills and abilities have seen some updates, including:

• With today’s update, we fixed a bug that allowed Skyward Ascent to accelerate you much more than intended when pitched upward
• Skyward Ascent’s boost has increased by 10% and grants increased forward velocity. This should result in a faster experience when moving forward and reaching higher heights
• An additional trait has been added to the beginning of the skill track:
  • Redirection – While moving at low speeds, Surge Forward’s effectiveness is increased by up to 122%, decreasing as speed increases.
• More Winds of the Isles have been added to Thaldraszus, near Tyrhold and the Cascades
• Skill track costs have been adjusted, to account for additional glyphs and decrease the cost of the earlier traits
• The vigor bar art has been updated toward a dragonrider’s aesthetic

Many of the changes in this build are to improve onramping to the system, including:

• The tutorial now includes a guided path from the Ruby Life Pools
  • This path includes rings and boosts like those found in time trials, protection from leaving the course, and highlighting Skyward Ascent for ascending
  • The tutorial now includes steps to open up the new menus that are key to dragonriding (the skill track and Rostrum of Transformation)
• 8 new Dragon Glyphs have been added to the Dragon Isles (including one experienced during the new tutorial steps)
  • These are intended to be more easily accessible and more easily seen while campaign questing
• The Rostrum of Transformation now sports an icon on the minimap

Bug fix highlights include:

• Pets will now resummon after dismounting from dragon isles drakes
• Summoning random favorite mount will no longer attempt to summon dragon isles drakes outside of the Dragon Isles and will prioritize dragon isles drakes while in the Dragon Isles

New Known Issue:

• Selecting grayed-out options can generally result in a degraded experience until leaving the Rostrum (for instance, not displaying changes and not saving valid changes)