The week has gone by incredibly quickly, so it’s time for another roundup of this week’s news in WoW Weekly News Edition! This week: hotfixes for Battle for Azeroth, the Developer Q&A addresses Scaling, Azerite armor and more and the Warbringers Azshara short is released.
In likely the last hotfixes for this week we see changes to Azerite powers and a lot more bug fixes.
Quote from: Blizzard
August 24, 2018
Azerite Powers
- Duplicative Incineration (Mage) damage reduced by 50%.
- Galvanizing Spark (Mage) Arcane Blast damage increase reduced by 10%.
- High Noon (Druid) damage reduced by 52%.
- Inevitable Demise (Warlock) no longer erroneously increases Drain Soul damage.
- Judicious Defense (Paladin) fixed an issue causing this trait to display two separate buff icons.
- Pressure Point (Monk) damage for Brewmaster reduced by 60%. Damage for Mistweaver reduced by 28.5%.
- Revolving Blades (Demon Hunter) now reduces your next Blade Dance by 3 Fury per enemy struck (was 5).
- Seismic Wave (Warrior) damage reduced by 58%.
- Shrouded Suffocation (Rogue) damage reduced by 11%. Fixed an issue that caused this trait’s damage increase to fail.
- Swelling Streams (Shaman) healing reduced by 30%.
- Unbound Chaos (Demon Hunter) damage reduced by 53%
Classes
- Death Knight
- Howling Blast’s area damage should no longer deal damage through line of sight.
- Outbreak’s explosion damage should no longer deal damage through line of sight.
- Druid
- Swift Landing now works properly in Travel Form and stacks the movement speed buff with the Travel Form speed buff.
Dungeons
- Siege of Boralus
- The waters around the Ashvane Company Docks are now infested with Blood Crazed Sharks!
Items
- Increased the damage dealt by Tiny Electromental in a Jar by 233%
- Increased the rate at which Gale-Force Striking triggers by 100%.
- Fixed an issue causing Darkmoon Deck: Squalls’ damage over time effect not to be affected by Haste or Critical Strike rating. Haste now causes it to trigger more frequently, and the damage over time effect can now critically hit.
- BoE items from low level areas should again scale more appropriately when they drop from creatures.
Island Expeditions
- Island Expedition shrine effects are now limited to Island Expeditions maps.
- Island Expedition consumable items now have diminished effects on PvP targets.
Missions
- Falstad and Valtois now correctly improve mission success chance with all kinds of Troops.
Quests
- “Blackrock Depths” should always be available upon completion of the War Campaign and reaching exalted with 7th Legion.
- “Vision of Time” should always be available upon completion of the War Campaign and reaching exalted with The Honorbound.
- Antitoxin will now be removed from inventory when turning in “They Want Us Alive”.
- Many Wanted: quests on the enemy continent now reward 7th Legion or Honorbound reputation. These quests have been reset for players who have already completed them.
- Part of the flight path during “Offensively Defensive” no longer goes through a tree.
World Quests
- On “Beachhead”, Vicious Albatrosses will now devour turtles in a new, more glorious way… Avert your eyes, ye of faint heart.
- Fixed an issue where “Strange Egg” was disappearing while fighting Vukuba.
- Horde Scouts for the “Running Interference” should no longer interfere so aggressively.
World
- Members of the Alliance can no longer rest at the Temple of Akunda or Vulpera Hideaway.
- The inn in Dreadwash now grants rest.
- The Netley Inn in Stormsong Valley now grants rest.
The final warbringers short has been revealed at Gamescom!
Quote from: Blizzard
Ten thousand years ago, the lands of Azeroth were torn apart by the Sundering. As the continents cracked open and the ocean rushed in, the Highborne elves and their great queen, Azshara, seemed doomed to a watery grave. But what she found in the deep was not oblivion . . . but opportunity.
Up next in our Mythic dungeon quickstart guide series is Shrine of the Storm. This guide covers the changes in mythic compared to normal. So check out our normal quickstart guide if you’re not sure on the mechanics.
Anther round of hotfixes has gone out, with a bigger variety of subjects!
Quote from: Blizzard
August 23, 2018
Achievements
- Ravenous Sandworms should now occasionally drop scales for Adept Sandfisher.
Azerite Powers
- Fixed an issue where Havoc Demon Hunters in Metamorphosis would not reliably trigger Meticulous Scheming.
Classes
- Power Word: Fortitude, Arcane Intellect, and Battle Shout are visible on raid frames (out of combat) to all members of the class who can cast them.
- Paladin
- Blessed Hammer correctly benefits only the casting Paladin.
Creatures and NPCs
- Fixed an issue with Faceless Tendrils in Atul’aman that caused them to ignore line of sight.
Dungeons
- Waycrest Manor
- Fixed an issue where a sister in the Heartsbane Triad could end up as the last witch alive and still have her damage reduction shield.
- Fixed a bug where the Heartsbane Triad could be considered defeated at incorrect times.
Items
- Players should no longer be able to use the Electroshock Mount Motivator to motivate flight path mounts to move quicker.
- Wolfpelt Greatcloak now has the same amount of stamina as other, similar cloaks.
Pet Battles
- Beguiling Orb can now be interacted with by multiple players at the same time.
Player versus Player
- Druid
- Balance
- Ironfeather Armor no longer incorrectly increases the haste gained by Incarnation: Chosen of Elune.
- Balance
Quests
- Xun Xun Sweetflower will now allow you to complete “Exotic Spices.”
- Bumbles should no longer be missing from the Mildenhall Meadery for “Let’s Bee Friends”.
World Quests
- Bear Heart and Caustic Sap now drop more frequently for “Bruin Potions”.
World
- A Horde flight path icon for Erika Jones is now present on the world map.
- The Fort Daelin Inn now grants rest.
- The Watertusk now grants rest to Alliance players.
- Binding your hearthstone to The Hozen Throne now refers to the player’s location appropriately as “The Hozen Throne”.
The first dev Q&A for Battle for Azeroth took place on the warcraft twitch channel. Here’s the new information we got from it:
General BfA Information
- Guild bank / AH infrastructure is lagging behind the infrastructure for realm sharding, which is causing the slow usage. In addition to that a change to how much the deposit costs to post stacks of items on the Auction House, so that you do not list for example 100 stacks of 1 herb but maybe 10 stacks of 10 herbs instead. More information will follow.
- Guild permission management has already received some improvements based on feedback, blizzard is listening to feedback to make more changes.
- More tools such as permanent bans for Communities are on the list for the developers. Feedback will also give direction to how Communities will continue to evolve.
- There are no plans to reduce the amount of trash in dungeons.
- There are wanted quests for both factions that either give reputation or not. They are looking to see if there’s disparities.
- We will see how the war impacts the other races of the Alliance and Horde in the future.
(Azerite) Gear
- The current plan is to roll out a hotfix that will take effect with the weekly reset to be able to trade azerite armor, adhering to the same loot trading rules as other pieces. (You need an item of atleast that item level on that slot to be able to trade it)
- As a catch up mechanic, over time you will need less artifact power to level up your heart of azeroth. This will start working with the next weekly reset.
- Specific azerite items drop from specific sources, so you are able to target them.
World
- World scaling is working as intended. While your gear improves, the world will become a little bit stronger. This way when you cast a 2,5 second spell to start combat, another player can’t start combat and finish it before you’re even finished casting your spell! The world scales at a much slower rate compared to how you improve as a player. This is how World of Warcraft has worked for the last 15 months. Argus for example worked with this entire scaling. Nevertheless there are some world quest mobs that have had too much health gain, these are hotfixed.
- The world feels stronger while leveling 110 – 120, the higher level you are the harder the world becomes. This is due to the way the entire world scaling works. It doesn’t feel great, and they’ll continue to look at ways to improve that.
- World Quests will stay relevant through the drops of Artifact Power and War Resources. It’s okay if you don’t feel you need a reward from an emissary when you have better gear from Mythic+.
- Emissary rewards are randomized, so that means horde and alliance will not always receive the same emissary reward.
Classes
- The development team is waiting for more data regarding performance of classes, more class balance changes will come! “We’re not done, we’re listening to feedback”
- The target for the first big class balancing patch is the end of the first week of September, before mythic raiding opens up. This, as always, can change!
PvP
- If the world PvP changes with lower levels compared to higher levels aren’t enough, more changes will be made.
- The bonus for War mode is something they’re being very careful with, they do not want to make it so rewarding that people feel obligated to have it turned on.
- War mode sharding for RP realms may be doing just among RP realms, they are still looking at the balance of that.
Island Expeditions
- The weekly quest for collecting 40k azerite is there to act as an exit point for doing islands for that week. Despite that looking at time, spent islands are a very lucrative way of earning artifact power.
World of Warcraft is nowhere near done as the 7th expansion, Battle for Azeroth, breaks records by becoming the fastest selling WoW expansion of all time!
Quote from: Blizzard
Horde and Alliance heroes around the world answer their faction’s call to arms in force as Blizzard Entertainment’s latest release surpasses 3.4 million in day-one sales globally
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 23, 2018– When the Battle for Azeroth™erupted worldwide last week, champions of the Alliance and the Horde around the globe were called upon to fight for their faction. Heroes everywhere turned out in force, and Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of Battle for Azeroth’s first full day of launch on August 14, more than 3.4 million units of the latest World of Warcraft® expansion had sold through worldwide—setting a new day-one sales record for the franchise and making it one of the fastest-selling PC games of all-time.*
“Battle for Azeroth is a definitive chapter in the Horde and Alliance conflict at the heart of Warcraft, and it’s been thrilling to see players representing their factions in record numbers and embarking on their war campaigns—not to mention joining in ourselves,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “But the launch is just the beginning of this conflict. More epic content is coming to World of Warcraft in the weeks ahead, and we can’t wait for players to experience the full story as it unfolds over the course of the expansion.”
As Azeroth’s defenders continue to explore new regions in search of allies and resources, preparations are being made for the next great confrontation in the ongoing war:
- In the coming weeks, players will be able to charge into Battle for Azeroth’s first Warfront, Stromgarde—a 20-player co-op battle for control of a key strategic stronghold in the Arathi Highlands.
- On September 4, the gates will open to Battle for Azeroth’s first raid—Uldir, an ancient titan facility housing horrific Old God experiments gone awry.
- Also on September 4, the expansion’s first PvP season and first Mythic Keystone dungeon season will commence. The Mythic Keystone dungeon will feature a unique “seasonal affix”—Infested—that introduces new challenges based on the corrupted denizens dwelling in the Uldir raid.
- Beyond that, additional updates are in the works that will provide even more content for players on an ongoing basis, including the ability to recruit the Kul Tiran humans and Zandalari trolls as playable Allied Races. More information on future updates will be shared at a later date.
*Sales and/or downloads, based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners.