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Category: Battle for Azeroth

24th January 2019 Developer Q&A Summary

The dev Q&A just concluded, here’s our summary of all new information that was given during the session:

Allied Races

  • Kul Tiran and Zandalari allied races are coming out with 8.1.5 because of story reasons but also because of practical reasons. Originally Kul Tirans weren’t planned as an allied race because they weren’t sure if they would be able to do so. Kul Tirans have been built from the ground up. Creating the Kul Tiran race took just as much effort as all the other allied races combined.

PvP

  • The Alliance currently get the ilvl 400 item from the weekly pvp quest for war mode promotion. They do not believe it will stay Alliance only as more and more Alliance players are also opting in to War Mode.  The quest helps as an incentive to get people into war mode. However, they do think ilvl 400 might be too high. Next week they might be changing it to ilvl 385 and instead add another reward such as conquest points.
  • Regarding PvP vendors – The new system is an attempt to improve on what vendors gave in PvP. In season 2 players have the choice to pick which armor with stats they want. An example was given of azerite gear. When you earn a pvp chest in season 2 you get to choose the chest out of multiple options. They would like to hear: What choices do you feel you are missing in PvP?

Technical Concerns

  • Server stability is top priority for the team. Unfortunately for an issue like this the solution isn’t just 1 fix, it requires multiple fixes. In the future they’d like to bring out a devcooler explaining some of the things they have already encountered and fixed and what they are still working on.
  • They’re going to see if they can raise the character cap on a realm to the account cap of 50 characters.

Quality of Life Improvements

  • In 8.1.5 we’ll be able to transfer war resources from our main characters to alts.

Gear

  • The 30 item levels increase is the smallest number of increase they’ve used for a long time. They have this number so it still feels like you’re becoming more powerful from new content loot while minimizing the inflation it brings to character stats.
  • The changes to the Azerite system are still fully being discussed, so things can change. However for patch 8.2… The bigger picture thinking that they’re looking at is as follows: They want to move away from unlocking the same traits every time you get a new piece. Instead you’ll earn more powers like legion artifacts had as your Heart of Azeroth levels up.
  • Regarding the funneling of Titan Residuum, they’re not likely to add more restrictions if it would hurt the majority of players. Nothing is further planned beyond the hotfix that was released recently.

Mythic+

  • They’re going to talk with the team about the rewards that come from mythic+.
  • Instead of removing the uniqueness that a class adds to mythic+, such as shroud from rogues, they would rather have other classes add other benefits you would want in your group.
  • It’s not likely they’ll add a punishment for leaving a mythic+ run halfway through the dungeon, the punishment is a social one. They won’t be invited back. A system they’d create would likely create more problems.

Game Design

  • What are the biggest design challenges the dev team has? Resolving short term vs long term, resolving casual vs hardcore, there are many different types of players that enjoy different aspects of it and have different concerns. The challenge is to offer fun gameplay to all those types of players.
  • The team is not done with looking at the GCD (Global Cooldown) changes. A lot of the cooldowns are unsatisfying to press. They’re looking at adding an active component to some cooldowns. Such as Ascendance for resto shamans, when you press it you might emit a burst of healing to make it feel more satisfying.
  • There are no major class changes coming in 8.1.5. Complete class overhauls that include rotation changes are more likely to happen in a new expansion. People also have different definitions for “major changes” and miscommunication on that has occurred in the past for classes such as shamans.

Hotfixes: January 22-23, 2019

As season 2 is now in full swing in all regions hotfixes have started to make their way to the live servers:

Quote from: Blizzard

January 23, 2019

Dungeons and Raids

Battle of Dazar’alor

  • The achievement Can I Get a Hek Hek Hek Yeah? now requires all members of the raid click on the Mysterious Trashpile before the fight starts to receive Jani’s Favor, and then complete the existing criteria for the achievement.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some players from receiving the achievement The Hidden Dragon on Normal difficulty.
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Arcane Torrent to remain available when changing factions.

Items

  • Emissary armor, weapon caches, and rewards from faction assaults now reward the item by loot specialization. These were previously rewarded by class.

Player versus Player

  • Sinister Gladiator’s Safeguard’s shield now has a duration of 6 seconds (was 10 seconds), and can now be dispelled.
  • Dread/Sinister Gladiator’s Emblem now has a duration of 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
  • Sinister Gladiator Maledict’s heal absorption can now be dispelled.
  • Xalziax’s Veiled Eye’s shield can now be dispelled.
    • Developers’ note: With the start of Battle for Azeroth Season 2, we introduced two new trinkets that are acquired via PvP, Sinister Gladiator’s Maledict and Sinister Gladiator’s Safeguard. In agreement with feedback we’ve been receiving, we’ve made a few changes to these items so that they provide more of an opportunity for counterplay when encountering enemy teams using these trinkets. We’ll continue to keep an eye on the strength of these trinkets as the season progresses.

Professions

  • Season 2 crafted Engineering goggles should now refund Tidalcores or Breath of Bwonsamdi and Expulsom when scrapped.

Quests

  • Fixed an issue where Alliance players who had faction transferred to Horde could not see Nathanos in Dalaran to accept “The Warchief Beckons”.
  • Nazgrim is once again available in Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar for Horde players on the questing experience to unlock Pandaria.

World Quests

  • Faction Assault World Quests now properly give credit for the Weekly Quest “The World Awaits”.
  • Pets should now summon and path correctly on Airships during Faction Assaults.

Hotfixes

January 22, 2019

Dungeons and Raids

  • Fortified and Bolster will no longer increase the health of the Reaping ghosts.

The MOTHERLODE!!

  • Fixed an issue causing Venture Co. Earthshapers to count double towards Enemy Forces criteria on Mythic Keystone difficulties. Slightly reduced the total Enemy Forces count.

Items

  • Potions that grant the player Invisibility (such as Demitri’s Draught of Deception) now place a 5-minute cooldown on all other potion types (was 10 minutes). The shared cooldown time for invisibility potions remains 10 minutes.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Tome of Town Portal from being properly affected by Seafarer’s Hearth.

Player versus Player

  • Every portion of Azerite powers that scale with item level have been reduced by 50% in PvP.
    • Developers’ notes: With the advent of new five-ring Azerite armor in Season 2, we’re mindful of the increased potential for stacking and combining traits. Over the course of BfA we’ve also made adjustments to individual Azerite traits, but that creates uncertainty and unpredictability, where unless you’ve followed all our hotfixes you don’t know exactly how a given trait will change when you enter PvP. This aims to replace that uncertainty with a straightforward rule. This change also overwrites all previous reductions to Azerite Traits in PvP that occurred during Season 1, as they will all now have their reduction set to 50% effectiveness. Non-scaling and non-stacking effects are unaffected by this adjustment.
  • Resolved an issue that caused Sinister Gladiator’s Maledict to not strike enemy players who have moved out of line of sight after the initial activation of the trinket.

Quests

  • Players on “The Lord Admiral’s Lament” while on the Saurfang questline should now be able to see Isabella.
  • “Quartermaster’s Bounty”, in which you turn in 10 Quartermaster’s Coins to get a Battleborn Sigil, is now a weekly repeatable quest.

Live Developer Q&A Thursday, January 24 – Submit Your Questions

A new Dev Q&A is going to take place this thursday and you can submit questions about patch 8.1 Tides of Vengeance part 2!

Quote from: Blizzard

Join us live on Twitch.tv/Warcraft Thursday, January 24, at 20:00 CET (19:00 GMT), as we sit down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas for our next live developer Q&A, where he’ll be answering your Tides of Vengeance part 2 questions.

You can submit your questions here in this thread or on Twitter by using the hashtag #WarcraftQA.

As a reminder, please keep your questions short (40 words or less) so that we can get to as many questions as possible. We look forward to you joining us live on Thursday!

Tides of Vengeance Part 2 Goes Live January 23

Blizzard has released a survival guide for the changes coming next week. If you primarily play mythic+ or pvp you should make note of the following: “During the first week of Season 2 Mythic Keystone Dungeon rewards will be capped at Mythic 6 quality (item level 385). PvP Season 2 end-of-match rewards will be capped at 385.”

Quote from: Blizzard

There’s plenty to look forward to when Tides of Vengeance Part 2 goes live on January 23. Watch our Survival Guide to learn more.

New Raid: Battle of Dazar’alor

The Alliance will strike at the heart of the Zandalari empire—while the defenders of the Horde will rally to their new allies’ defense—in an epic new raid, Battle of Dazar’alor. This new raid provides both Horde and Alliance players with unique encounters for their faction—along with the opportunity to play through events from the opposite faction’s viewpoint.  Learn more.

PvP Season 2 Begins

PvP Season 2 will begin and introduce an updated Conquest reward schedule, mounts, and gear. Players who earn 500 Conquest points in a given week through PvP activities including Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Assaults in War Mode will be still be able to choose a piece of gear from each week’s selection; in addition, they’ll now earn a Quartermaster’s Coin, which can be collected and ultimately used to upgrade pieces from this season’s Sinister Gladiator PvP set. Learn more.

Mythic Keystone Dungeon Season 2 Begins

The new Mythic Keystone Dungeon season opens opportunities for new rewards and a new challenge with the new seasonal affix: Reaping. High-level Keystones will now summon Bwonsamdi, the Loa of Death, to wreak some spectral havoc upon players’ dungeon run. As heroes kill enemies, the vanquished spirits will continue to linger in the mortal realm. At certain points throughout the dungeon, Bwonsamdi will resurrect these twisted souls, who will swarm the unfortunate adventurers in a final act of vengeance. (Blog coming soon.)

Azerite Armor Updates

With the release of Season 2, we’re introducing new epic Azerite pieces from PvP Season 2, the Battle of Dazar’alor raid, World Quest Emissaries, and from the Mythic Keystone vendor Thaumaturge Vashreen in Zuldazar and Boralus. These new items will have a fifth ring with additional new trait options. Learn more.

Content Difficulty and Rewards Changes

With a new season upon us and the Dazar’alor raid dungeon opening, we wanted to share some additional information on the changes coming to a variety of dungeon and outdoor world encounters including increases to both difficulty and rewards.

  • New Maximum Item Level: With great challenges come great rewards and the maximum possible item level will go up to 425.
  • Battle for Darkshore Warfront: Battle for Darkshore rewards will also increase to 400 from both the outdoor boss and from Warfront quest that can be completed once per cycle. The difficulty of the Warfront will increase however, and the item level required to queue will increase to 335. These changes will go into effect after the current Warfront cycle has ended. Until that time, players will still receive Season 1 rewards.
  • World Quest Emissary Rewards: World Quest Emissary weapon and armor rewards will also now scale up to 385 based on the player’s own item level. Rewards from the original Battle for Azeroth Launch World bosses will remain at item level 355 to stay on par with Uldir.
  • Dungeon Rewards and Difficulty: The difficulty of Heroic and Mythic dungeons will also be increase as follows:  Normal–340, Heroic–355, and Mythic– 370(baseline)
  • Mythic Keystone Dungeons and PvP: During the first week of Season 2 Mythic Keystone Dungeon rewards will be capped at Mythic 6 quality (item level 385). PvP Season 2 end-of-match rewards will be capped at 385.
  • Seals of Wartorn Fate: Seals of Wartorn Fate are not being reset and this same currency can be used for Battle of Dazar’alor and Season 2 bonus rolls; the cap on how many can be held at once remains at 5.

For additional insights on these changes, read the developer forum post.

Battle for Azeroth PvP Season 2 Begins January 23, Battle for Azeroth Season 1 Cutoffs

With Battle for Azeroth season 2 staring next week Blizzard has released information on how PvP will continue. Players will have more flexibility in choosing the gear they want and the cutoff pvp ratings have been determined (sort of).

Battle for Azeroth PvP Season 2 Begins January 23

Quote from: Blizzard

Battle for Azeroth PvP Season 2 goes live Wednesday, January 23, and with it come a few system changes and updated Conquest rewards.

Conquest Reward Updates

With PvP Season 2, we’ve fine-tuned the Conquest reward schedule to provide players with more variety and flexibility to get the kind of gear they’re looking for.

Players who earn 500 Conquest points in a given week will receive one Quartermaster’s Coin and a piece of gear from that week’s selection. Players might also earn an additional piece of gear or Quartermaster’s Coin each week by using a weekly bonus roll token in PvP. 10 Quartermaster’s Coins can be exchanged for a Warlord’s Trophy, which players can use to upgrade a piece of Sinister Gladiator’s gear to a higher item level (based on their current Rated PvP bracket).

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Alliance PvP Season 2 Armor

During weeks when the Conquest reward is a head, shoulder, or chest item, players can choose from one of four different pieces of Azerite gear. For the weeks when the Conquest reward is not an Azerite piece, trinket, or weapon, players will be able to choose gear from one of two different slots such as legs and wrists, hands and back, or finger and feet.

Week

Item Level

Item 1

Item 2

1

375

Weapon

2

385

Head

3

385

Legs

Wrist

4

385

Trinket

5

385

Chest

6

385

Hand

Back

7

385

Shoulder

8

385

Trinket

9

385

Finger

Feet

10

400

Weapon

11

400

Head

12

400

Legs

Waist

13

400

Trinket

14

400

Chest

15

400

Hand

Wrist

16

400

Shoulder

17

400

Trinket

18

400

Finger

Feet

19

400

Weapon

20

400

Head

21

400

Waist

Back

22

400

Trinket

23

400

Chest

24

400

Legs

Finger

25

400

Shoulder
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Horde PvP Season 2 Armor

The PvP reward UI will now show the criteria needed to receive your weekly chest. Elite sets (available to earn for a limited time only) can also be viewed in the Appearances interface under the Set tab.

Ranked PvP Rewards

We’ve also updated the naming conventions for the brackets. Now when players reach a 2400 rating in any bracket (2v2, 3v3, or 10v10 Rated Battlegrounds), they will be moved into the Elite bracket. Like other brackets, players will immediately be granted an achievement and title when reaching the bracket. Elite titles are class-specific, and players will receive a unique tabard for their collection.

PvP Tier

Rating
Unranked 0-1399
Combatant 1400-1599
Challenger 1600-1799
Rival 1800-2099
Duelist 2100-2399
Elite 2400+

Sinister Gladiator Title

The Gladiator title and achievement will now be earnable by winning 50 games above a 2400 rating in 3v3 Arena. Players in the top 0.1% at the end of the season in this bracket will earn the title Sinister Gladiator for Season 2.

PvP Season 2 Mounts
PvP Season 2 Alliance and Horde Mounts

Season 2 Mounts
During Battle for Azeroth Season 2, players can work toward claiming the Vicious Black Bonesteed or Vicious Black Warsaber. Once earned, players can fill the bar again to receive a Vicious Saddle, allowing them to purchase a mount from previous seasons.

Keep an eye on the Player vs. Player Leaderboards during the season to follow who’s making waves at the top.

Battle for Azeroth Season 1 Cutoffs

Quote from: Blizzard

With Battle for Azeroth Season 2 fast approaching, we wanted to give those looking to push for titles at the end of Season 1 an idea of what to aim for.

What follows are the current rating cutoffs as of this post, for the respective titles. These are not the final cutoffs, which will change slightly based on continued play through the end of the season as well as any disqualifications that occur after the season ends, but can be used as a general estimate for what ratings are needed in order to qualify.

  • Dread Gladiator – Horde: 3022
  • Dread Gladiator – Alliance: 3069
  • Hero of the Horde: 2726
  • Hero of the Alliance: 2749

Again, these are not the final cutoffs, which we won’t be able to determine until after the season officially ends.

What’s Changing (and Not!) in Season 2

A new forum post has gone up detailing the changes coming next week, together with the new raid Battle for Dazar’Alor, when season 2 starts.

Quote from: Blizzard

Hi all,

We have a series of blogs accompanying the release of the upcoming Battle of Dazar’alor raid, the new Mythic Keystone season, and the new PvP season, offering deep dives into each of those features. But in the meantime, the community clearly has a ton of questions (and some confusion) about exactly what is and isn’t changing. Should you be spending or saving your bonus rolls? What should you expect from the weekly Mythic Keystone cache next week? What’s up with the Azerite vendor?

For those of you who played Legion , the process will largely be familiar, though in Battle for Azeroth we’re trying to align the opening of a new raid tier with the start of new PvP and Mythic+ seasons, to avoid some of the awkward item-level leapfrogging that we saw during Legion (e.g. the Mythic Keystone cap repeatedly going up to 15 and then back down to 10). Here’s a succinct summary of what is and isn’t changing next week, when Battle of Dazar’alor opens on Normal and Heroic difficulties, and PvP and M+ Season 2 begin:

Overall

  • The maximum possible item level will go up by 30, from 395 to 425.

Warfronts

  • Arathi/Stromgarde rewards will remain as they were previously.
  • Darkshore rewards will go up by 15 item levels, so that the outdoor world boss and the once-per-cycle quest both award item-level 400 gear.
  • The power of all enemies in the Darkshore Warfront will also go up by roughly 15%, and the item level required to queue for Darkshore will go up from 320 to 335.
  • Special note: The two Darkshore changes will only take effect after the current Warfront cycle has ended. So if Alliance is attacking Darkshore in a given region when Season 2 begins, and has 3 days left in that attack cycle, that Darkshore will still give Season 1 rewards.
    • This is being done to avoid any unfairness to people who had already completed the Warfront or done the world boss just prior to the season rollover.

Kul Tiras and Zandalar World Content

  • Emissary weapon and armor rewards will scale up to 385 (based on a player’s own item level), up from 370.
  • The loot from Kul Tiras and Zandalar world bosses will remain item level 355, on par with Normal Uldir.
  • The rewards for in-progress emissary quests may reroll or update when Season 2 begins, though the quests themselves won’t reset or change.

Dungeons

  • The item level of rewards from max-level Normal, Heroic, and Mythic dungeons will go up by 30. Baseline rewards will be 340 from Normal, 355 from Heroic, and 370 from non-Keystone Mythic.
  • Difficulty of Heroic and Mythic dungeons will also go up by roughly 30%; Normal dungeons are unchanged.
  • Mythic Keystones will go down by an additional 3 levels when the season transition occurs, to account for this difficulty increase. So if you do an 11 this coming week, instead of getting a Level 10 keystone when Season 2 starts, expect a 7.
  • Mythic+ rewards will also go up by 30 item levels; however, during the first week of Season 2, rewards from end-of-run chests will be capped at Mythic 6 quality (item level 385), and the chest you open next week will contain Season 1 rewards if you do a Mythic+ run this week. (So, for example, if you do a Mythic 10 during the final week of Season 1, you’ll get a Season 1 item level 380 piece and 60 Residuum from your first Season 2 chest.)
  • The weekly cache that becomes available in the second week of the season will not be affected by this cap, so if a player does a Mythic 10 dungeon during the first week, they will get a Mythic 10 reward (item level 410+) from their cache the following week.

PvP

  • Season 2 rewards from rated PvP sources are 30 item levels higher than they were in Season 1, including Conquest rewards and the weekly chest.
  • End-of-match rewards will be capped at 385 during the first week of the season, to maintain parity with other endgame systems until Mythic Battle of Dazar’alor becomes available.

Azerite Armor

  • All epic Azerite armor of item level 370 or higher, obtained from Battle of Dazar’alor, world quest emissaries, Season 2 dungeons, or Season 2 PvP, will have a fifth outer ring with additional spec-specific traits.
    • This outer ring only requires a Heart level of 15 to access.
  • Titan Residuum is not reset or capped between seasons.
  • The Residuum vendor will offer item level 385, 400, and 415 pieces for sale in Season 2.
    • A random item-level 385 token costs 165 (as it does today)
    • A random 400 costs 675
    • A random 415 costs 1725
    • A specific item-level 415 armor piece costs 7150
  • Just as Residuum costs roughly triple with each 15-ilvl tier, so will rewards:
    • Disenchanting an item level 400 Azerite piece yields 115 Residuum
    • Disenchanting an item level 415 Azerite piece yields 365 Residuum
    • A weekly cache for a Mythic 4 in Season 2 awards roughly the same 60 Residuum that a Mythic 10 did in Season 1; a Mythic 10 in Season 2 will award ~625 Residuum

Heart of Azeroth

  • Artifact “Knowledge” will resume accruing as soon as Season 2 begins, increasing the effect of AP earned by 30%.
  • That will be the first of ten increments. Knowledge will again pause after the week of March 26th.
  • Note that the Heart of Azeroth currently has a maximum level of 50. This cap will increase in the Rise of Azshara update, along with significant changes to the underlying system.

Miscellaneous

  • Seals of Wartorn Fate are not being reset, and the same currency will work for Battle of Dazar’alor and Season 2 bonus rolls; the cap on how many can be held at once remains at 5.

If anything remains unclear or seems to be missing from the above, please let us know and we’ll try to clarify as soon as possible.

Hotfixes: January 10, 2019

The final hotfixes of the week brought along some changes to the Island expeditions, focussing on the new azerite creatures that were introduced in patch 8.1. Other than that some other CC in island expeditions and more pvp changes also made their way to the game via hotfixes.

Quote from: Blizzard

January 10, 2019

Island Expeditions

  • Developers’ notes: Following up on recent community feedback that we requested, a number of quality-of-life concerns led us to changes that we intend to address many frustrating combat experiences with certain Island ecologies.
  • Azerite-themed enemies
    • Enemies now prefer not to use Resonant Burst, Resonant Shield, and Volatile Geyser when a nearby enemy has recently used the ability.
    • Reduced the number of Resonant Focus orbs created per cast of Resonant Burst to 2 orbs (was 4).
    • Removed the Knockback component of Resonant Backlash (triggered from Resonant Shield) on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
    • Reduced the Knockback magnitude of Resonant Focus orbs on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
    • Volatile Eruption’s disorient effect (triggered from Volatile Geyser) has been reduced to 1 second on Normal and Heroic difficulties, and reduced to 2 seconds on Mythic difficulty (was 3 seconds).
  • Kvaldir enemies
    • Greatly reduced the magnitude of the two visibility-impacting effects (Fetid Mist, Eerie Fog) triggered from the Kvaldir invasion.
  • Musken and Yak enemies
    • Removed the knockback effect from Ram.
    • Trample damage reduced by about 50% and is now melee defense.

Player versus Player

  • Druid
    • Balance
      • Celestial Alignment increases damage of your spells by 10% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 15%).
      • Incarnation: Chosen of Elune increases damage of your spells by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 25%).
      • Shooting Stars now generates 2 Astral Power when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 4 Astral Power).
  • Monk
    • Mistweaver
      • Surging Mist (PvP Talent) mana cost increased to 3.8% of base mana (was 2% of base mana), and healing reduced by 20%.
      • Way of the Crane (PvP Talent) increases physical damage by 25% (was 35%), and now heals for 150% of damage dealt (was 200%).
  • Shaman
    • Elemental
      • Earth Shock damage reduced by 10% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      • Stormbringer increases Lightning Bolt damage by 115% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 125%).
      • Surge of Power can now cause up to an additional 2 Lightning Bolt overloads against enemy players (was 3 additional overloads).