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Category: Warcraft

Hotfixes: November 23 2022, Class Tuning 30 November, Dragonflight: Making It with Professions

The potentially last hotfixes before the long holiday weekend in the US, as well as the release of Dragonflight, consist of yet more bug fixes as well as a band-aid fix for Shadowlands Enchanting vellums. Blizzard also announced the first set of Dragonflight class tuning changes that will occur with the first weekly rest of Dragonflight next week!

A new blog post was also posted summarizing all new things coming to Professions with Dragonflight.

Quote from: Blizzard

November 23, 2022

Achievements

  • Fixed an issue where Alliance players attempting to complete Pilgrim’s Peril were unable to get credit for sitting in the Undercity Bountiful Table in past Tirisfal Glades.

Classes

  • Demon Hunter
    • Fixed an issue that prevented Infernal Armor’s damage value from increasing with its second rank.
  • Druid
    • Balance
      • Fixed an issue where Orbital Strike and Goldrinn’s Fang would always critically strike when affected by Balance of All Things.
  • Evoker
    • Quell can no longer be used while hexed.
  • Shaman
    • Fixed an issue causing Lightning Shield, Water Shield, and Earth Shield to be removed when logging out, entering instances, or when dying.
    • Lightning Shield now lasts 60 minutes (was 30 minutes).
  • Warlock
    • Demonology
      • Fixed an issue where Fel Sunder could not be applied by multiple Demonology Warlocks.

Items and Rewards

  • Fixed an issue where Evokers were not eligible to roll on many legacy items.
  • Adjusted the sell value of some items to better reflect their values before the recent item level adjustments.

Professions

  • Fixed an issue where Shadowlands enchants could not be applied to Enchanting vellums.
  • Developers’ note: This fix will temporarily prevent enchants that were available prior to Shadowlands from being applied to Enchanting vellums. This new issue will be fixed shortly after the release of Dragonflight.

Class Tuning 30 November

Quote from: Blizzard

We’re working on a slate of tuning adjustments for several classes that will be applied to the live game with scheduled weekly maintenance on 30 November. Please note: this weekly maintenance period is a day after Dragonflight content becomes available.

Demon Hunter

  • Havoc
    • Burning Wound Immolation Aura damage bonus reduced to 40% (was 50%).
    • Know Your Enemy (Talent) critical damage bonus reduced to 40/80% of your critical strike chance (was 50/100%).
    • Any Means Necessary (Talent) damage bonus for affected skills reduced to 80% of your Mastery: Demonic Presence bonus (was 100%).

Paladin

  • Of Dusk and Dawn has been adjusted:
    • Blessing of Dawn now increases damage and healing by 5% (was 6%). Duration increased to 20 seconds.
    • Blessing of Dusk duration increased to 20 seconds.
    • Seal of Order now increases healing the healing and damage of your Holy Power spending abilities by 8% (was 10%) during Blessing of Dawn.
  • Protection
    • Word of Glory healing increased by 40% for Protection Paladins.
    • Light of the Titans healing increased by 40%.

Priest

  • Discipline
    • The duration of the Harsh Discipline buff effect has been increased to 30 seconds (was 15 seconds).

Rogue

  • Outlaw
    • Dispatch damage reduced by 5%
    • Dreadblades (Talent) duration reduced to 8 seconds (was 10 seconds) and Energy cost reduced to 40 (was 50).

Warrior

  • Arms
    • Seasoned Soldier now also grants 10% reduced damage to area effect damage.
    • Battlelord now also increases the damage of Overpower by 25% at all times.
    • Martial Prowess increases the damage of Mortal Strike by 30% per stack (was 25%).
    • Exhilarating Blows chance to reset Mortal Strike or Cleave increased to 20% (was 15%).
    • Fatal Mark damage increased by 20%.
    • Fueled by Violence now heals for 65% of the damage dealt by deep wounds (was 50%).
    • Mortal Strike damage increased by 3.5%.

Player versus Player

Rogue

  • Recuperator effectiveness is no longer reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Echoing Reprimand damage is no longer reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Reverberation damage is no longer reduced by 33% in PvP combat.
  • Outlaw
    • Killing Spree damage is no longer reduced by 20% in PvP combat.
    • Pistol Shot damage is no longer reduced by 16% in PvP combat.
  • Subtlety
    • Mastery: Executioner effectiveness is no longer reduced by 20% in PvP combat.

Dragonflight: Making It with Professions

Quote from: Blizzard

Dragonflight introduces a new and updated profession system into World of Warcraft, providing greater depth and engagement while allowing the crafters of Azeroth a way to differentiate themselves and stand out from their peers.

Crafting Orders

Crafting orders are a new way for you to place an order for almost any Dragon Isles crafting recipe using an Auction House-like interface. This new service will be provided as nearly free of charge by representatives of the Artisan’s Consortium, a new trade organization recently founded with its first branch in the Dragon Isles.

When placing an order, there are three options that players can set for who can fulfill it: public, guild, or personal. For public orders, the player requesting the creation of an item will need to provide the tradeable reagents.  Guild and personal orders can be provided by the requestor or the crafter. Certain special reagents may only be provided by one or the other. In particular, Soulbound reagents will often need to be provided by the requestor when placing an order for a Soulbound item.

Players will also be able to customize the order further by including various Optional Reagents depending on the recipe, dictating exactly what you want to be crafted. For example, many equipment recipes will allow secondary stats to be specified.

Once an order is finished being customized, the requestor will decide on an offered commission to the crafter, pay a small posting fee, and send it off.

Crafters can then view these orders, fill in any missing reagents, craft the item, and collect the commission (minus a small cut for the Artisan’s Consortium, of course!). The finished item will then be delivered in the mail.

This is a great new way for crafters to earn gold, increase skill, and, most importantly, help craft for friends and guildmates.

Profession Specializations

Profession specializations will allow crafters to specialize in their primary crafting and gathering professions once they’ve reached a high enough skill. You will earn specialization knowledge through a variety of activities and get to spend it on improving different areas of your profession permanently.

This will be one of the main ways crafters can differentiate themselves from their peers, as there will be many areas of each profession to specialize in.

Crafting and Gathering with Quality

Crafting with Quality

Quality and its Effects

New to World of Warcraft is the concept of crafting quality, both for crafted items and many gathered reagents. This is not to be confused with rarity, such as Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary, which remains unchanged and isn’t directly related to crafting quality.

Crafted equipment will have five levels of possible quality, while many other crafted and gathered items, such as potions and ores, will have three levels of quality.

For crafted equipment, quality primarily modifies item level, with each level of quality increasing it by a small amount. For example, a piece of crafted leveling gear might be item level 306/308/310/313/316 at quality Tier 1/Tier 2/Tier 3/Tier 4/Tier 5. In all cases, the goal is to have quality matter enough for it to be worth your effort to achieve higher qualities without having the gains be so large that the lowest quality versions don’t feel worthwhile.

For crafted items such as consumables that have quality, the effects of quality are a bit more varied. For most, a higher quality will result in a more powerful effect, but in some cases, it might come in other forms of variation, such as longer duration, more charges, etc. Note that there is an expectation that low-quality versions of these items will sell for less, but this will provide a niche for those who don’t want to spend a lot of gold to be able to make use of the full suite of crafted items. It will also be cheaper to craft lower-quality versions of these items for a variety of reasons.

For reagents that have quality, that quality value will serve as a major input into crafting. Crafting with higher-quality basic reagents will directly provide bonus skill when crafting with them (more on that below).

Finishing Reagents are a new type of reagent that can be used to improve aspects of the crafting process— increasing skill or crafting stats, for instance. Higher-quality versions of these will have stronger effects on crafting.

Not all gathered reagents will have quality. The core reagents gathered by the primary gathering professions of mining (ores), skinning (skins, scales, hides), and herbalism (herbs) will have quality, as well as reagents crafted by the primary professions (e.g. cloth bolts, metal alloys, etc.). Other reagents such as meat, cloth, fish, and elements that can be gathered by anyone will not.

Determining Quality – the Crafting Process

When crafting an item, there are two main elements of note.

The Recipe Difficulty will determine how hard it is to craft the recipe at a higher quality. Recipe Difficulty will also change when you include Optional Reagents, which can modify it up or down depending on their effects and quality, sometimes significantly.

Crafting Skill is determined by the base skill the character has in their profession (e.g. Dragon Isles Tailoring), but can be modified by a variety of factors, including the quality of the reagents in use, Finishing Reagents, profession gear with skill bonuses, various bonuses provided by consumables, and most significantly,  profession specialization.

As you craft your item, there is a small amount of randomness added to your skill roll to represent the natural variation in your crafting execution. In addition, if you have any Inspiration—a new crafting stat—you have a chance to become inspired, gaining a significant amount of bonus skill during the craft. This means you may do better than you expected, but never worse!

In the end, final Crafting Skill will be compared against the Recipe Difficulty. If that skill is higher than the difficulty, you will craft the item at maximum quality; otherwise, the quality will depend on where your skill falls comparatively.

Additional Crafting Stats

In addition to your primary Crafting Skill, there are several secondary crafting stats that can affect the crafting of new Dragon Isles recipes and which gear can be specialized towards. These are as follows:

  • Inspiration – You have an x% chance to be inspired, crafting this recipe with extra skill.
    • Inspiration is for those of you who love rolling the dice and getting lucky on some bonus quality. It’s also a way to craft items at a higher quality than your natural skill and a specialization would allow when you get lucky.
  • Resourcefulness – You have an x% chance to use fewer tradable reagents such as ore.
    • If you are trying to squeeze every drop of profit out of your crafts, then this is the stat for you.
  • Multicraft – You have an x% chance to craft additional items. Only works on recipes for stackable items.
    • We have long loved the feeling of crafting extra items from various abilities, like Potion Master in Burning Crusade. Multicraft cements this as a permanent crafting stat for those of you who love that moment of crafting a bit extra!
  • Crafting Speed – Crafting is x% faster.
    • For those of you who mass-produce crafts for the Auction House or just want to save a few seconds now and then, crafting speed is a stat to help you create those items a bit faster.

A Few Dragonflight Specific Crafting Details

Powerful Crafted Equipment

In Dragonflight, there are many recipes for extremely powerful craftable equipment. Every primary crafting profession can craft one or more pieces, all of which work under a shared system with the following attributes:

  • Some of these items have more powerful effects and are labeled as Embellished. Others do not but can have optional reagents included that add a powerful effect, making them Embellished. While you can wear as many un-embellished items as you want, only two Embellished items can be equipped at once.
  • All of them start at an item level range near to Normal raids, increasing with quality. Through earned Optional Reagents, they can be brought up to Heroic and even Mythic raid item levels, making them competitive with some of the best gear you can find.
  • All are Soulbound, so you’ll either need to craft them yourself or have someone craft them for you through a crafting order.
  • Each piece of crafted equipment will require several types of Soulbound reagents that you will need to earn to craft it and improve it further with Optional Reagents.
    • The first of these, Primal Chaos, will come from various challenging activities including dungeons, raids, PvP, and adventuring in some dangerous outdoor areas. You will need to earn a fair amount of this reagent to craft a piece of equipment, more for significant pieces. A second reagent, Spark of Ingenuity, will come from a series of quests that award you with enough to craft one piece of equipment. Additional stages of these quests will become available to everyone every few weeks. After five are earned, you will gain the ability to make more Sparks of Ingenuity when you find a rare drop around the Dragon Isles.
    • To upgrade this equipment to Heroic or Mythic raid item level, you will need to acquire 10 Primal Focuses or 10 Concentrated Primal Focuses, respectively, then combine them with some Primal Chaos. These final reagents can only be obtained in Heroic / Mythic Raids, the highest levels of Mythic+, and highly rated PvP.
    • For those who don’t do this content, reaching a high level of Renown with each Major Faction will allow you to acquire a Primal Infusion, the optional reagent that upgrades your equipment to Heroic item level.

Alchemy and Phials in the Dragon Isles

You will find many strange and wondrous concoctions to discover during your Alchemical experimentations on the Dragon Isles. One of these is the standardization of the Phial as an innovative replacement for the Flask. Phials work very similarly to Flasks, lasting through death and counting as both a Battle and Guardian Elixir. The main difference is they tend to require about half the reagents to craft and last half as long, but two can be drunk together to get the duration of a Flask for extra flexibility.

Alchemists who choose to specialize in Phials will discover the secret to making Phials last significantly longer for them.

New Crafting Stations

Upon entering the Dragon Isles, you will find new crafting stations for all primary crafting professions.

Engineering Station

Enchanting Station

Jewelcrafting Station

Portable Alchemy Station

Most advanced Dragon Isles crafting recipes will require you to be at these new crafting stations. You will find many of them scattered throughout the regions of the Dragon Isles for your convenience during leveling. Once you reach the main city of Valdrakken, you will find a large profession hub which includes all the crafting stations, as well as vendors and trainers. The Artisan’s Consortium also has Crafting Order representatives located in the city and has even convinced some Auction House representatives to set up shop in the area as well.

Alchemists are often called to craft fresh potions and other concoctions on the spot for their allies, but the engineers of the Dragon Isles have invented remote crafting tables for alchemists to use. These portable stations are highly convenient and rarely prone to explosion—save for alchemist error, of course.

Reagent Bags and Updated Stack Sizes

With the introduction of quality to crafting and gathering, additional inventory updates have been made regarding professions. To help crafters out, we’ve introduced a brand-new bag, the reagent bag! Reagent bags can only hold reagents and follow the same rules as the reagent bank. These new bags will also exist in a new dedicated bag slot, allowing for a larger amount of inventory space to devote to your gathered and crafting reagents.

In addition to this new reagent-only bag, the maximum stack size for most crafted and gathered items in Dragonflight has been increased. Gathered reagents stack to 1000 (up from 200), and most crafted consumable items stack up to 200, up from 20 (e.g., potions, Optional Reagents, Finishing Reagents, etc.).

Prospecting and Milling Updates

With the new profession updates, new Milling and Prospecting recipes are now listed in each expansion-specific version of Alchemy and Jewelcrafting that you have learned. These recipes will allow you to select which herb/ore you wish to mill/prospect from that expansion, then select create or create all to consume as many or as few of them as you want with a single click.

You will also find that the basic version of Milling and Prospecting, where you directly target a stack of reagents, is gone, replaced by this more convenient means of Milling and Prospecting.

Profession Equipment

Players will also now be able to gain profession-specific equipment to enhance their gameplay and show off their crafting pride. In the new system, most professions have three slots for equipment— one tool slot and two accessory slots. These slots provide a dedicated place to put your profession equipment. You will no longer need to keep a hammer in your inventory if you are a Blacksmith or switch your weapon with your Fishing rod when you want to fish; these items will already be equipped

New profession equipment in Dragon Isles will often provide profession bonuses, usually in the form of new crafting and gathering stats.

In addition to the bonuses it provides, most pieces of equipment can show on your character, letting you look the part of your profession. When you perform a profession-related action, your character will optionally visually swap into this profession equipment, then switch back again upon entering combat.

Recrafting and Artisan’s Mettle

Recrafting allows you to take Dragon Isles’ crafted gear and take another shot at crafting it. It requires the original item, a subset of the original tradeable reagents that went into it, plus in Dragon Isles crafting, a special profession-earned reagent known as Artisan’s Mettle:

Recrafting allows you to add, remove, or change out the Optional Reagents in the gear. Any Optional Reagents that are replaced or removed will be destroyed in the process. It also allows you to raise the quality of the gear further if you can craft it at a higher skill than when it was originally made.

As mentioned above, Artisan’s Mettle is required for recrafting. This reagent is Soulbound and can only be earned in limited quantities through various crafting and gathering activities. During a crafting order, either the customer or crafter can provide it.

Besides its use in recrafting, Artisan’s Mettle also has various other profession-centric uses. Some of these are for crafting high-end profession equipment, Illustrious Insight, a Finishing Reagent that increases skill when used, and some other profession-benefiting consumables. This means that Artisan’s Mettle is highly valuable to anyone with professions and that you’ll want to be judicious with how you choose to use it.

With more tools at your disposal, we look forward to seeing where you take your new crafting adventures, and we’ll see you in the Dragon Isles!

Dragonflight Survival Guide, Update Notes

Blizzard has posted a survival guide for the Dragonflight release in collaboration with some WoW content creators as well as update notes for next week’s launch!

Quote from: Blizzard

Check out the latest Survival Guide for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. Join CDew, Hazelnutty, and Naguura as they guide you on your first steps onto the Dragon Isles. You’ll learn more about mastering the skies with Dragonriding and outdoor progression with Major Factions. You’ll also get a dragon’s-eye view of significant profession and talent systems updates, new raid content, revamped UI and HUD, and more.

To learn more about Dragonflight, visit Dragonflight.blizzard.com and check WorldofWarcraft.com/news for updates.

See you on the Dragon Isles!

Dragonflight Update Notes

Quote from: Blizzard

Head over to Stormwind or Orgrimmar to begin your journey into the Dragon Isles and experience the new content the expansion has to offer, including:

NEW LEVEL CAP: 70

Ascend to new heights of power as you explore the Dragon Isles, earning new talents every step of the way to level 70.

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.

SOAR THROUGH THE AIR WITH DRAGONRIDING

Dragonriding is 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. [LEARN MORE]

MEET THE MAJOR FACTIONS

Dragonflight ushers in a unique way to progress with Major Factions. Earn Reputation to unlock Renown ranks and access to rewards when you assist denizens of the Dragon Isles. [LEARN MORE]

EIGHT NEW DUNGEONS

Four new level-up dungeons and four maximum-level dungeons await players who venture into the Dragon Isles. Whether you’re looking for loot, a new challenge, or to learn more about this ancient land, you’ll need to gather your courage— and your allies— for the trials ahead. [LEARN MORE]

Level-up dungeons:

  • Ruby Life Pools
  • Brackenhide Hollow
  • The Nokhud Offensive
  • Halls of Infusion

Max-level dungeons:

  • Neltharus
  • The Azure Vault
  • Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
  • Algeth’ar Academy

 

VAULT OF THE INCARNATES RAID

Venture into the ancient prison of the Primal Incarnates before their malevolent power can be unleashed against the Dragon Aspects. [LEARN MORE]

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

 

AN EYE ON PROFESSIONS

Become a Dragon Isles artisan and fulfill crafting orders for your realm. Hunt down rare ingredients and create ever more wondrous items as you unlock specializations for your profession.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS

  • Shadowlands raids and World Bosses have returned to their previous difficulties and are no longer Fated. Fated Raid quests, rewards, achievements, and the mysterious 3 vendors in Oribos are no longer available.
  • The following content will become available after the weekly maintenance starting on November 29:
    • Mythic Dungeons
    • Dragonbane Keep Strongbox from Siege on Dragonbane Keep (Epic quality)
    • Grand Hunt Spoils (Uncommon, Rare, and Epic quality)
    • The weekly quest “Community Feast”
    • The “Aiding the Accord” weekly quests
    • The “Show Your Mettle” weekly quest
    • Weekly Valdrakken professions quests of any kind
    • Weekly PvP quests rewarding honor
      • Developers’ note: We want players to level at their own pace without feeling like they’re missing out on a week of rewards if they fail to reach level 70 within a few hours after the expansion launch.

ITEMS AND REWARDS

  • Sylvanas Windrunner and The Jailer mount drop rates have significantly decreased (was 100%), and the amount of dropped mounts will decrease to 1 (was 2).
  • The Shadowlands Great Vault has been sealed and no longer provides rewards for completing activities in the Shadowlands.

PET BATTLES

  • A new questline has been added that helps new players learn about the pet battle system.

WOW COMPANION APP

  • Players can view maps and world quests.
  • Players can view Major Factions tracks and rewards.

To view all content update notes, click here.

Hotfixes: November 22 2022, Reminder: Dragonflight Content Before the Weekly Reset

Last night more hotfixes were posted that include additional tuning changes in addition to the usual bug fixes. Blizzard also posted a reminder that Dragonflight weekly content such as M0’s and the weekly reputation quest will not become available until the weekly reset on Tuesday/Wednesday so that players don’t feel pressured into leveling quickly in the first hours/day of the release.

Quote from: Blizzard

November 22, 2022

Classes

  • Druid
    • Balance
      • Fixed an issue where Wild Mushroom’s damage would sometimes be delayed.
      • Fixed an issue where Lunar Eclipse increased the damage of Wild Mushroom.
      • Fixed an issue where Balance of All Things (Arcane) increased the crit of Wild Mushroom.
  • Evoker
    • Soar can no longer be cast while rooted.
  • Monk
    • Brewmaster
      • Gift of the Ox healing increased by 60%.
      • Celestial Brew healing increased by 40%.
      • Pretense of Instability duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds) and Dodge bonus increased to 15% (was 10%).
  • Priest
    • Discipline, Shadow
      • Fixed an issue causing Surge of Light to not reduce the mana cost of Flash Heal for Discipline and Shadow.
    • Discipline
      • Harsh Discipline now triggers every 8 / 4 casts of Smite (was every 10 / 5 casts).
  • Rogue
    • Assassination
      • Fixed an issue that unintentionally allowed a Rogue to consume Amplifying Poison stacks applied by another Rogue.
    • Outlaw
      • Fixed an issue that prevented Ambush from being correctly affected by Adrenaline Rush’s reduced global cooldown modifier.
      • Fixed an issue that prevented some offensive abilities with energy costs from being correctly affected by Adrenaline Rush’s reduced global cooldown modifier. Affected abilities were: Ambush, Blade Flurry, Echoing Reprimand, Sepsis, and Shiv.
  • Shaman
    • Resolved an issue causing Elemental Orbit to double the mana cost of Earth Shield when cast on the Shaman.
    • Restoration
      • Fixed an issue causing Recall Cloudburst Totem to be immediately usable after summoning a Cloudburst Totem.

Reminder: Dragonflight Content Before the Weekly Reset

Quote from: Blizzard

With the timing of the unlock of the Dragon Isles (Monday, November 28 at 23:00 GMT / Tuesday, November 29 at 0:00 CET), players will find themselves leveling up with about one day to go before the weekly reset.

We’ve configured Dragonflight to prevent most weekly rewards from appearing prior to that first weekly reset. As a result, the following content will be unavailable until the new week starts:

  • Mythic Dungeons
  • Dragonbane Strongbox from Siege of Dragonbane Keep (Epic quality)
  • Grand Hunt Spoils (Uncommon, Rare, and Epic quality)
  • The weekly quest “Community Feast”
  • The “Aiding the Accord” weekly quests
  • The “Show Yer Mettle” weekly quest
  • Weekly Valdrakken professions quests of any kind
  • Weekly PvP quests rewarding honor

We want players to level at their own pace without feeling like they’re missing out on a week of rewards if they fail to reach level 70 within a few hours after the expansion launch.

Dragonflight Pre-launch Interview Roundup

In the leadup to the Dragonflight release next week a whole bunch of new developer interviews have taken place!

Below is a roundup of new information, of course you can expect spoilers:

Professions (General)

  • Archeology would be a great match for Dragonflight and we can look forward to something cool there. They initially just wanted to focus on the primary professions. (SoulSoBreezy)
  • Cooking and Fishing don’t have specializations but do have new things to do via the Iskaara Tuskarr renown track (SoulSoBreezy)
  • They are hesitant on adding Inscription Glyphs that change spell effects because they want spells to remain recognizable in PvP, but they do hear the want for spell customization (SoulSoBreezy)
  • In the next season it is likely there will be new item level upgrade items as well as brand new recipes for new gear (SoulSoBreezy)
  • You cannot respec your profession talent trees. Eventually you’ll be able to unlock all profession talents. If you can respec then you can easily get access to every specialization whenever you need it. There would be no choice to make (SoulSoBreezy)
  • There are a lot of specialization points you can unlock early on that are not influenced by when you start playing the expansion, so a catchup system should not be needed (SoulSoBreezy)
  • They want to add crafting orders for old expansion recipes but they do not have a timeline for this feature (SoulSoBreezy)
  • They want to see how crafting orders work out first as a realm wide feature and leave the option open to make them region wide later if they think it would be beneficial (SoulSoBreezy)
  • While it’s challenging they want to make it possible for you to be able to switch to a profession you previously knew and relearn profession recipes that you had obtained but now no longer exist in the game (AnnieFuchsia)

Endgame Gearing

  • They want professions to be able to provide viable high end gear (SoulSoBreezy)
  • High end profession gear will not be purchasable via the Auction House because then anyone can just use gold to buy gear (SoulSoBreezy)
  • Crafting Orders are the solution the developers came up with where you have to collect items yourself and then craft Bind on Pickup gear via a crafter (SoulSoBreezy)
  • You will be able to earn a Spark of Ingenuity once every 2 weeks. After 5 you will be able to earn a rare drop called Bottled Essence from all types of content to create more Sparks (SoulSoBreezy)
  • Items (Primal Infusions) to upgrade crafted gear to Heroic and Mythic item level will drop via Raiding, Mythic+ and Rated PvP (SoulSoBreezy)
  • Crafted gear will not be usable to convert to tier gear via the Catalyst (SoulSoBreezy)
  • World content players will be able to get 5 Primal Infusions by maxing out renown and killing Raszageth on LFR to still get access to a couple of Heroic item level gear pieces (SoulSoBreezy)
  • Sockets & Tertiary stats as options from The Great Vault through tokens would quickly make them become mandatory. They would rather ask what if my character is just done at one point? It will allow you to play alts more (Maximum)
  • They’re having debates about catch up mechanics for The Great Vault on alts, to further make it attractive to play alts after you’ve finished gearing one character. A possible example is being able to select multiple gear options from the weekly reward. (Maximum)
  • Mythic+ Season 1 will not have uncapped Valor (Maximum)
  • The Tier Catalyst serves multiple purposes. It’s bad luck protection for raiders but is the main source of tier gear for non-raiders. (Maximum)
  • They are happy with raiders getting access to tier bonuses earlier because the competition for raiders is at the start of the season, whereas for PvPers and Mythic+ers it’s at the end of the season. (Maximum)

Player Customization & Transmog

  • They do want professions to provide rare transmog items (SoulSoBreezy)
  • “The developers are looking into adding more customizations to other races in the future, TBD when. Boomkins are not forgotten!” (MMO-Champion)
  • “There are still plans to allow players to transmog white and gray quality items, but there is still tech work to be done.” (MMO-Champion)

Dragonriding & World Content

  • There will be dozens of cutscenes in the encrypted max level campaign quests! (Raider.io)
  • “The dragonriding system does use real physics.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “The team isn’t sure if they’ll bring existing mounts to the dragonriding system yet, they will see what player feedback is like.”(MMO-Champion)
  • “You can go and fully upgrade Dragonriding from the beginning, nothing stopping you from doing that.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “Once you’ve played the main campaign on one character, you can play the campaign in any order on an alt if you’d like.” (MMO-Champion)
  • There will not be weekly content unlocks at launch (MMO-Champion)
  • “The team talks about Timewalking a good bit, and in an expansion with Bronze Dragons there is an opportunity to do some timey-wimey things, but no spoilers!” (MMO-Champion)

Dracthyr Evokers

  • There are no plans to show more armor slots in Dracthyr form (Wowhead)
  • There are no immediate plans to add more Dracthyr customization options (Preheat)
  • Hover is a cornerstone of Evoker gameplay (Preheat)
  • Early on they imagined AoE being a strength for Evokers and talents they developed based on that vision strengthened that feeling when playing Evoker further (Preheat)
  • Their threat generation is intended, give the tank a chance to get aggro! They will continue discussing the issue (Preheat)
  • Due to the mid-range 25-30 yard max range the Evoker has a distinct gameplay style. They don’t intend to change it but will keep an eye on if more tools need to be balanced to let it play well (Preheat)
  • Burst AoE Healing, Mobility and preparation for incoming damage are the intended strong points of Preservation (Preheat)
  • Burst AoE Damage and Mobility are the intended strong points for Devastation (Preheat)
  • Bug fixing for Empower spells is ongoing but they are happy with how Empower spells have turned out (Preheat)
  • Echo is intended for lower target count healing, Emerald Blossom is intended for larger amounts of targets but they hope you’ll find situations where you can use both spells (Preheat)
  • There are no mechanics that exclude Evokers from being targeted when other ranged classes would be targeted, despite their mid-range (Preheat)
  • They would like to introduce a share/import option for Dracthyr customizations (AnnieFuchsia)

Class Tuning & Design

  • There will be frequent class tuning that will start with a weekly cadence as we go into the initial Dragonflight launch and then spread out over time (Wowhead)
  • They plan to make major changes where needed and it’s likely that those would occur when new seasons begin (Wowhead)
  • They talk regularly about healer damage output but also consider what utility they bring and other factors. Ultimately they want healers to spend their time healing and unavoidable damage helps facilitate that (Wowhead)
  • Tank threat still has a role to play but they have grown into a very active role in Mythic+ with more responsibilities. As long as tanks are actively engaged with creatures they should be keeping aggro (Wowhead)
  • They are satisfied with where classes and specs ended up in terms of whether or not they bring buffs and/or utility to the group (Wowhead)
  • There are no immediate plans to changing the GCD on abilities (Wowhead)
  • They want to take a more active approach in Class balance, including in situations where community perception might be a big influence (Raider.io)
  • “There are other race/class combinations that may be added in the future. Sometimes a story is needed to build it up before it is added. Paladins have a lot of history, so adding more Paladin race/class combinations might need some story first.” (MMO-Champion)
  • The Hybrid tax concept hasn’t been tuned around for a long time, it’s gone (Preheat)
  • They have considered awarding additional talent points in later patch content but there are issues they would have to solve for the future dev team so there is nothing currently planned (Maximum)
  • For now they see addons as a valid solution to adding more talent tree loadouts beyond the ingame cap of 10 (Maximum)
  • The lack of a borrowed power system allows them to take a good look at what works well for a class and their talents and what needs to be improved in the basis (Maximum)
  • They would like to hear feedback about the current implementation of cooldowns on the GCD (Maximum)

Season 1

  • When considering the timing for the season 1 release at the end of the year they looked at what is going to be the best experience for players. They felt that the simultaneous release of both Heroic and Mythic Vault of the Incarnates would be best and they feel comfortable they have the tools needed to hit their tuning targets (Wowhead)
  • While there will not be a unique tier armor color reward for Mythic+ in Season 1 they like the idea of adding it in the future so that Mythic+, Raiding and PvP all have such a reward (Wowhead)
  • Just as there is no expectation for Mythic raiders or PvPers to clear the hardest content in the first week, there should not be the expectation that Mythic+ players clear the most difficult levels in the first week (Wowhead)
  • They’re keeping an eye on Heroic raid tuning, Heroic Sepulcher was a lot harder than they wanted it to be (Wowhead)
  • Following Sepulcher of the First Ones they had philosophical discussions. One question was “when is it okay to wipe the raid instantly for a mistake?” and the conclusion was a single player’s mistake should almost never wipe the entire raid group. This conclusion influenced the Vault of the Incarnates and future raids (Raider.io)
  • If the simultaneous Heroic + Mythic raid release works well then it’s likely to continue in future releases (Raider.io)
  • By changing the distribution of gear rewards in Mythic+ depending on key difficulty they can reward Mythic+ players with more similar gear to Raiders. It does mean that at the lower end of the spectrum players will have a harder time getting access to the same quality gear they have before (Raider.io)
  • With the changing dungeon pool with every season they look at the seasonal M+ affix as something to enhance the coordination level required from your group. Thundering gives you control over how much you want to min max the buff versus just getting rid of it to not risk getting stunned (Maximum)

Endgame Content (General)

  • There are no plans for a Global Raid Release in Dragonflight. While hundreds of people compete in the RWF it would inconvenience hundreds of thousands of players that don’t participate in it (Raider.io)
  • They see SL Season 4 as a successful experiment but would next time want something for outdoor-focused players as well (Raider.io)
  • An end of expansion season is unlikely to have raids from other expansions because there’s a difference between learning a whole new old raid versus a couple of old dungeons (AnnieFuchsia)
  • They would like to expand on the timewalking raids as a way to revisit old raids (AnnieFuchsia)
  • They have no plans to change how the Hall of Fame works (Raider.io)
  • They want to make cross-faction guilds possible (Raider.io)
  • They have unofficially drawn the line at Mists of Pandaria dungeons as possible M+ candidates because of the visual fidelity of the dungeons that came before it (Raider.io)
  • Dungeon Teleport rewards are not account wide because exclusive dungeon rewards have been historically character/class specific. They might revisit this in the future (AnnieFuchsia)

Story & Lore

  • The main focus of Dragonflight is not the larger Cosmology but it will delve into the relationship between the Dragonflights and the Titans (Nobbel)
  • “Death is still an uncertainty to most citizens of Azeroth, they didn’t come to Shadowlands with us. Not everyone came back from Shadowlands.”  (MMO-Champion)
  • “We have not have found all of the afterlives yet.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “The most interesting villains and characters aren’t necessarily the most powerful. Crafting interesting villains with nuance is a big part of the future of World of Warcraft.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “The team leaned hard into local stories for Dragonflight, taking advantage of the huge zones.” (MMO-Champion)
  • The timeskip is purely to give the denizens of Azeroth a moment to catch their breath and to let some younger characters grow up (MMO-Champion)
  • The Dragons are not mind controlled by the Titans waters but are influenced to be more orderly. Titans do not like Chaos (MMO-Champion)
  • There are a lot of scenes not yet datamined surrounding Raszageth (MMO-Champion)
  • “In order for Ysera to come out of the Shadowlands, someone has to take her place. Her story will continue when it makes sense to do so.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “You might have to wait a little while, but you’ll find out more about the copper coin in the adventure guide.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “The expansion should end on a strong note, hopefully we have helped our allies out, achieved some things, and made the Dragon Isles a better place.” (MMO-Champion)
  • They want to tell stories that best fit the medium. The game is best served with Gameplay. Books & print are seen as a good way to get in the minds of characters (Nobbel)
  • They don’t want to use the books to have major events happen you won’t see ingame like Cairne’s death or the trial of Garrosh (Nobbel)
  • The writers think you can still play through old content such as Warcraft 3 and Wrath of the Lich King and take that content as is, without the influence of the Jailer (Nobbel)
  • What the writers wanted to do with Shadowlands is that the forces of Death touched Azeroth and affeced its history in different ways than the forces of the Void or Order did throughout Azeroth’s history (Nobbel)
  • The Jailer wanted to make Death the dominant force in the cosmos (Nobbel)
  • The writers say the First Ones did not lay out an exact path for the Maw Walker but accounted for eventualities by placing the way stones (Nobbel)
  • The thing that separates mortals from magical beings is free will (Nobbel)
  • The influence of the void as embodied by the Old Gods is not gone from Azeroth (Nobbel)
  • They have not forgotten about the Gilneas storyline (Nobbel)
  • Centaur are a native race to Azeroth. They were around when there was just the 1 massive continent of Kalimdor. The Maruuk centaur broke away from the other tribes that died off (Nobbel)
  • It’s no secret that Ysera will be involved in the story of Dragonflight but she is currently bound to the Shadowlands and more specifically The Winter Queen’s powers (Nobbel)
  • The primalists started out with a valid point, which led to further actions that make them the bad guys (Nobbel)
  • The timeline for the start of the expansion is as follows: Watcher Koranos lights the beacon of Tyrhold (Announcement Cinematic) -> Dragons go to the Dragon Isles -> Dracthyr Forbidden Reach Intro ->Nozdormu meets Emberthal (Legacy Cinematics) -> Kalecgos and Khadgar meet (Prepatch Event) (Wowhead)
  • Shadowlands starts 35 years after the Dark Portal, Dragonflight stats in the year 40 (Wowhead)

Misc

  • Philosophically Dragonflight is “the first expansion built from the ground up with ideals like promoting more stuff that’s account-wide and alt-friendly and is really us saying formally “you know what, it’s okay if you ignore large chunks of the game. We’re not going to make you do these things. We’re going to lay them out there for you and make them as appealing as we can, but we trust you to find your own path and your own fun. If that means that you ignore this chunk of content that a portion of our team spent a lot of time crafting, that’s fine. It’s not in anyone’s interest to make you do something that you’re not enjoying every day or week.”  (Raider.io)
  • If they can make things better partially but not all the way in the short term they will do that. For example the UI revamp. They are not done yet but wanted to put a better than previous UI in players’ hands while they continue building upon it (Raider.io)
  • The entirety of Dragonflight was built in a hybrid, primarily work from home, environment. They found holding meetings virtually has provided a number of benefits, so even if they all returned to the office tomorrow they would still hold meetings virtually (Raider.io)
  • “The team would like to make it easier to make it easier for players to start with Pet Battles. Nothing specific to announce right now, but there are things they will look into.” (MMO-Champion)
  • “There is nothing to announce right now regarding soloing older raid content, but the team wants feedback if something feels broken when it comes to this old content, especially in older expansions.” (MMO-Champion)
  • They are very happy with the much more focused Alpha/Beta process (Maximum)
  • They have a lot of plans for content in Dragonflight but are not ready to announce anything yet (Maximum)
  • They would like to bring the map coordinates system into the base WoW UI so that you don’t have to use addons for that (AnnieFuchsia)
  • WoW is not coming to console. The controller support is there for accessibility reasons (AnnieFuchsia)
  • They will look at the 2000 pets achievement to make sure it is actually achievable in Dragonflight (AnnieFuchsia)
  • They would like to have pet battles be possible to play on the WoW Companion App but there are some technical challenges (AnnieFuchsia)
  • They are looking at the size of battlegrounds and the potential of a solo queue for rbgs like with solo shuffle (AnnieFuchsia)

Full Interviews/Sources:
SoulSoBreezy Profession Interview
Wowhead Class Design/Season 1
Raider.io
MMO-Champion
Preheat Evoker Interview
Liquid Maximum Interview
AnnieFuchsia Interview
Nobbel Interview
Wowhead Lore
Wowhead Dragonriding & Endgame

Hotfixes: November 21 2022, Warcraft Short Story: “The Vow Eternal”, Accessibility Updates in Dragonflight

This week’s hotfixes start with the usual bug fixes but also more class tuning coming with the weekly reset and player power has been adjusted in Legion raids. Based on some quick morning testing the Legion raid encounter still take longer than they did prior to patch 10.0.2 but the disparity isn’t as bad as it was.

Additionally Blizzard posted a new short story written by Christie Golden and put up a blog post summarizing all the Accessibility changes that have been added recently.

Quote from: Blizzard

November 21, 2022

Classes

  • Death Knight
    • Blood
      • Fixed an issue with Bonestorm not activating Icy Talons.
    • Unholy
      • [With weekly restarts] Epidemic now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
      • [With weekly restarts] Bursting Sores damage is reduced by 10%.
      • Fixed an issue with the Coils of Devastation not applying to enemies within Battlegrounds and Arenas.
  • Demon Hunter
    • [With weekly restarts] Immolation Aura now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
    • Havoc
      • [With weekly restarts] Fel Rush now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
  • Druid
    • [With weekly restarts] Protector of the Pack talent now stores 5% of damage/healing (was 10%). The maximum stored amount increased to 160% of spell power (was 140%).
      • Developers’ note: Protector of the Pack was reaching its cap too quickly to be a satisfying build up. The slower build up and increased cap should result in a better pacing for this talent.
    • Feral
      • [With weekly restarts] Tear Open Wounds now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
      • [With weekly restarts] Lunar Inspiration’s Moonfire damage cast in Cat Form reduced by 40%.
        • Developers’ note: We want to keep Lunar Inspiration’s value as a ranged DPS option and cheap combo point generator, but bring its output more in line with other talents at its location in the tree.
    • Guardian
      • After the Wildfire now heals a maximum of 5 nearby targets.
      • [With weekly restarts] After the Wildfire is now affected by the Astral Influence talent.
      • [With weekly restarts] Fixed several incorrect interactions between Berserk and Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc.
    • Restoration
      • Fixed an issue that caused Regrowth’s healing to not be increased properly by Soul of the Forest while using the Undergrowth and Rampant Growth talents.
      • Fixed an issue that caused Overgrowth to not consume Soul of the Forest.
      • Fixed an issue that caused Flash of Clarity to not increase the healing of Regrowth in all circumstances while using the Rampant Growth talent.
  • Evoker
    • Fixed an issue where Soar would persist after being summoned.
  • Hunter
    • Marksmanship
      • [With weekly restarts] All damage dealt increased by 10%.
    • Survival
      • [With weekly restarts] All damage dealt increased by 5%.
      • Fixed an issue where Wildfire Bomb would incorrectly generate Focus when talented into Coordinated Kill without Coordinated Assault being active.
  • Mage
    • Fire
      • [With weekly restarts] Ignite damage reduced by 12%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Master of Flame now increases Ignite’s damage by 15% (was 18%).
    • Frost
      • [With weekly restarts] Frozen Orb damage reduced by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Blizzard now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  • Monk
    • Brewmaster
      • [With weekly restarts] Stormstout’s Last Keg’s bonus damage reduced to 20% (was 30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Charred Passions’ bonus damage reduced to 50% (was 100%).
    • Mistweaver
      • [With weekly restarts] Blackout Kick damage increased by 6%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Spinning Crane Kick damage increased by 5%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 25%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Tiger Palm damage increased by 30%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Bonedust Brew now copies 50% of damage or healing for Mistweaver Monks (was 40%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Awakened Faeline now causes Spinning Crane Kick to heal 3 nearby allies (was 5) for 50% of the damage done (was 25%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Fixed an issue that caused copied Blackout Kicks from Teachings of the Monastery to deal 20% less damage than intended.
    • Windwalker
      • [With weekly restarts] Resonant Fists now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
  • Paladin
    • Protection
      • [With weekly restarts] Bulwark of Righteous Fury damage bonus reduced to 20% (was 30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Judgment damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Avenger’s Shield damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Blessed Hammer damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Crusader Strike damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Hammer of the Righteous damage increased by 10%.
  • Priest
    • Discipline
      • [With weekly restarts] The mana cost of Power Word: Radiance has been reduced by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Flash Heal healing increased by 30%.
    • Shadow
      • [With weekly restarts] Mind Sear now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
      • [With weekly restarts] Psychic Link now causes Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and Mind Spike to deal 30%/60% of their damage to all other targets affected by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards (was 15%/30%).
  • Rogue
    • Assassination
      • [With weekly restarts] Indiscriminate Carnage cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
    • Outlaw
      • [With weekly restarts] Fatal Flourish chance to restore Energy reduced to 60% (was 65%).
    • Subtlety
      • [With weekly restarts] Shuriken Storm damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Shadowstrike damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Black Powder damage increased by 5%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Secret Technique damage increased by 5%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Shadow Blades cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
      • [With weekly restarts] Fixed an issue that prevented Secret Technique’s built-in cooldown reduction from benefitting from Echoing Reprimand’s Animacharged combo points.
  • Shaman
    • Enhancement
      • [With weekly restarts] All damage dealt increased by 5%.
  • Warlock
    • Fixed an issue where Demonic Circle: Summon and Teleport would continually get added to the action bar between Specialization swapping.
    • Affliction
      • [With weekly restarts] Malefic Affliction now causes your active Unstable Affliction to deal 8/13% additional damage (was 5/10%), up to 24/39% (was 15/30%), for the rest of its duration.
      • [With weekly restarts] Dread Touch now causes your target to take 30% additional damage from your damage over time effects for 6 seconds (was 20%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Doom Blossom damage increased by 15%.
    • Demonology
      • [With weekly restarts] Dreadbite now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
    • Destruction
      • [With weekly restarts] Rain of Fire damage increased by 15%.
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • [With weekly restarts] Executioner’s Precision now grants 35% increased damage per stack to Mortal Strike (was 30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Bloodsurge now triggers 10% of the time (was 7%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Bladestorm damage increased to 60% (was 50%).
    • Fury
      • [With weekly restarts] Odyn’s Fury now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Enemy difficulty has been adjusted to increase relative player power in all Legion raid encounters.

Items and Rewards

  • Tome of the Tranquil Mind and other similar tomes are now gray items and are no longer usable.

Professions

  • Fixed an issue where Shadowlands professions could not be trained before level 48 in Timewalking Campaigns.
  • Fixed an issue where players were unable to fish while seated if a fishing pole is equipped.

Quests

  • Fixed an issue where using Intruder Alert! during “Brought to Light” would not reveal Horde saboteurs.

Reputation

  • Fixed an issue where Evokers could not gain reputation with certain legacy factions.

Warcraft Short Story: “The Vow Eternal”

Quote from: Blizzard

Attend the wedding of the century with Wrathion as he seeks knowledge about the Dragon Isles, the ancestral homeland of Azeroth’s dragonflights.

Wrathion scoffed. The pleasure of your company. Ha! This wedding was a monumental event in Azeroth’s history—the joining of two powerful leaders—and yet he knew he had been invited only as a courtesy. No one in Azeroth really wanted a black dragon—especially him—at any sort of grand occasion. It was good political theater to trot out someone so instrumental in defeating the old god N’Zoth and saving the world, but neither the couple nor their high-profile guests would deem being in his company a pleasure.

Wrathion crumpled the scroll with unnecessary vigor and flung it into a corner. Weddings were notoriously sappy affairs, and this one was likely to be especially so. According to the reports of his Black Talon operatives, it was a true love match, one that had blazed to a flame during a poetry competition, of all things. There would be other giggling, happy pairs; families with their giddy children; old friends reuniting.

Positively stomach-churning.

Read and download this humorous and heartfelt short story by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden.

Read Now

Wrathion

Accessibility Updates in Dragonflight

Quote from: Blizzard

Greetings, adventurers! As we approach the launch of Dragonflight, we would like to highlight some of the recent accessibility improvements we’ve added to World of Warcraft. Since our last update in Shadowlands, we’ve been hard at work building new features and adding more options.

New accessibility features are available to everyone, and most options can be found in the Options panel of the Game Menu (default hotkey: Escape). Let’s look at some of the highlights.

Updated UI and HUD

Sweeping changes have been made from the ground up to provide a clutter-free layout that allows players to customize their HUD to better fit their individual needs. Explore a fresh-looking Heads-Up Display (HUD) and User Interface (UI) designed to be adjustable, effective, attractive, and easily accessible for everyone. You can read all about it in our blog article.

New Talent System

Dragonflight debuts the biggest change to the Talents system yet, giving you more freedom to experiment and more options to choose from than ever before. Get familiar with the changes so you can make the most of this update, including Loadouts, the Search Bar, and Importing and Sharing talent builds.

Import and Share Talent Loadouts in Dragonflight

Advanced Tip: Here are some advanced chat command lines that can be used to access the Talent frame.

Loads loadout for the current specialization by name. This command will load the first one found in the case of duplicate names.

  • /run ClassTalentHelper.SwitchToLoadoutByName(loadoutName)
  • /loadoutname loadoutname
  • /lon loadoutname

Loads loadout for the current specialization by dropdown index. Indices start at 1.

  • /run ClassTalentHelper.SwitchToLoadoutByIndex(1)
  • /loadoutindex 2
  • /loi 3

Activates specialization for the current class by spec name.

  • /run ClassTalentHelper.SwitchToSpecializationByName(specName)
  • /specname specname
  • /spn specname

Activates specialization for the current class by index in the order within the Specializations tab. Indices start at 1.

  • /run ClassTalentHelper.SwitchToSpecializationByIndex(1)
  • /specindex 2
  • /spi 3

New Options Menu

The previous “Interface” and “System” menus have been combined into the more intuitive “Options” menu. This update allows you to find various Accessibility options more easily.

The Game Options menu, showing the accessibility section highlighted.

New Option: Field of Vision (FOV) reduction

You can now adjust your camera FOV control in Options > System > Graphics to help with motion sickness.

New Option: Press and Hold Casting

When enabled, this option allows you to press and hold a keyboard hotkey to continually cast a spell on an Action Bar without having to repeatedly press the button. Keep in mind that this feature currently works only with spells and keyboard hotkeys (or gamepad buttons). Macros, mouse clicks and on-use items are not currently supported. You can enable this option under Options > Gameplay > Combat > Press and Hold Casting.

New Option: Dracthyr Empowered Casting

Dracthyr Evokers have special Empowered abilities that they can use to change the strength of the spell or ability they are casting. By holding down a button on your keyboard or mouse, you will power up a spell. The longer you charge the spell, the more damage it could do or the more targets the spell could hit. You have the option to toggle between two modes for Empowered abilities: Hold and Release (this is the default option) or Press and Tap. Read more about the Dracthyr Evoker in our preview.

Hold and Release and Press and Tap control schemes for Empowered Casting.

New Feature: Interact Key

Press the Interact Key to interact with NPCs and objects with a key press (default hotkey: F) instead of your mouse. Interactive NPCs and objects will highlight as you enter interact range and face them. A helpful icon will appear above NPCs as needed. This also functions for quest item interactions, and we’ve added an option to enable a sound when an interaction becomes available. Enable this option under Options > Gameplay > Controls > Enable Interact Key.

New Action Targeting System

You can use Action Targeting to automatically target enemies as you approach them, allowing you to start casting abilities immediately. Action Targeting dynamically switches targets based on where you’re looking. This option doesn’t stop you from using the default Tab Target system to loc on a target. Enable this option under Options > Gameplay > Combat > Enable Action Targeting.

Soft Targetiing, Action Targeting, and Interact Key features.

Advanced Tip: While not available in the game settings directly, there are several changes that you can make to how this works in-game using command variants (CVars). To use a Cvar, enter the following into your chat window: /console [command] [value] (no brackets). For example: /console SoftTargetIconEnemy 1

A few below that you might find useful:

  • The CVar SoftTargetInteractRange can be changed to increase the reporting range for an interaction. The default range is set to 10.
  • By default, not everything displays an interact icon overhead, to reduce visual clutter in the game world. The following CVars are set to “0” by default, but can be set to “1” to enable interact icons in additional cases: SoftTargetIconEnemy, SoftTargetIconFriend, SoftTargetIconInteract, SoftTargetIconGameObject, SoftTargetLowPriorityIcons.
  • You can force on the Name Plate for the interact target (including GameObjects) by setting the following CVars to “1”: SoftTargetNameplateEnemy, SoftTargetNameplateFriend, SoftTargetNameplateInteract.
  • While not enabled by default, you can set SoftTargetFriend to enable soft targeting for friendly (healable) targets. It functions identically to enemy soft targeting, with a matching set of CVars to control/tune it.
  • One additional CVar that can be particularly useful for visually impaired players is SoftTargetInteractArc. It normally defaults to “0”, which means interact requires direct facing to the target. Setting it to “1” or “2” gives it additional arc leeway.

New Option: Display Name Size Adjustment

You can now adjust a minimum on-screen text size to keep it legible. The text will also fade to indicate distance rather than shrinking in size. Enable this option under Options > Accessibility > General > Minimum Character Name Size.

Gamepad API Support Improvements

We’ve made additional API updates to these control schemes improving support for controllers, touchpads, and gyros so addon creators can leverage them, including added support for gamepad button icons to improve their legibility on the action bar, and the ability to combine gamepad and mouse input in a single control scheme.

Dragonriding: Ride Along

Enabling this setting allows you to make your Dragon Isles drake interactible. Any other players that interact with you will become whelps that move alongside your Dragon Isles Drake. Find Lithragosa near any Rostrum of Transformation, including the one at Skytop Observatory during the Dragonriding Tutorial or in Valdrakken, and select the “I heard something about helping my fellow adventurers?” dialog followed by “Please enable passengers for me.” Whelps are able to earn Dragon Glyphs, but do not count as participants during Dragonriding Racing.

Enable Ride Along your friends can tag along as you master your Dragonriding skills.

Dragonriding: FOV Effects

Dragonriding FOV changes do not occur if you have selected “Reduce Camera Motion” in the Accessibility > General menu.

Dragonriding: Full Screen Effects

Dragonriding top-speed full screen effects do not display if you have checked “Alternate Full Screen Effects” in the Options > Accessibility > General menu.

Improving accessibility In World of Warcraft for all players is an ongoing effort. We’ll continue to work on making Azeroth a welcoming world of adventure for everyone and share more updates as they become available. Thanks for playing!

Dragonflight Dragonriding Glyph Guides

When Dragonflight releases you’ll be able to get around with new dragonriding mounts early on. You can improve the experience by collecting Dragonriding Glyphs to unlock talent points. Check out the quickstart guides for the locations in all 4 zones down below:

 

Dragonflight Season 1 Mythic Dungeon Quickstart Guides

Dragonflight season 1 will consist of 4 out of the 8 new Dragonflight dungeons and 4 previous expansion dungeons! Check out the quickstart guides for all 8 down below: