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Category: Warcraft

Hotfixes: May 27, 2022, Massive Class, Raid and PvP Tuning Coming With 9.2.5

Blizzard wrote a couple of posts last night detailing tuning coming to classes, the Sepulcher raid and PvP with the upcoming weekly reset when patch 9.2.5 launches! Additionally one raid tuning hotfix has already made its way to the live servers.

Hotfixes: May 27, 2022

Quote from: Blizzard

May 27, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Rygelon
      • Dark Eruption damage reduced by 45% on Heroic difficulty.
      • Collapsing Quasar Field duration increased to 12 seconds on Heroic difficulty (was 10 seconds).
      • Cosmic Ejection initial damage decreased by 25%, and the damage over time decreased by 73% on Heroic difficulty.
        • Developer’s note: This should reduce the requirement to split this damage amongst multiple players or utilize player immunities to avoid the damage altogether.

 

Class Tuning and PvP Adjustments Coming in 9.2.5

Quote from: Blizzard

We’ve now finalized a series of class tuning and PvP adjustments for the 9.2.5 update. The following changes will be included in 9.2.5 next week during maintenance, and you’ll see them in the 9.2.5 patch notes:

Classes

  • All classes now generate more threat when in a tank specialization.
  • Developers’ notes: We’ve heard a lot of feedback about threat loss from the community (and our teammates) since the start of this season. Our design intent is that a tank who is actively directing their damage rotation at an enemy should be able to maintain threat on that enemy, but simple area of effect spells (like Consecrate or Death and Decay) alone should not be sufficient. We’ve analyzed this situation and feel that a small adjustment to tank threat modifiers should help maintain that balance for the remainder of the expansion.

Hunter

  • Beast Mastery
    • All damage abilities and pet damage increased by 4%.
    • Beast Cleave now causes your pet to strike other targets for 100% of your pet’s damage (was 90%).
  • Developers’ notes: Beast Mastery has not received as much AoE benefit from its set bonus as other specializations and consequently has fallen behind. We’re increasing the damage of their pets and Beast Cleave damage transfer to help their overall performance.

Mage

  • Gift of the Lich (Necrolord Conduit) duration reduced by 33% in PvP.
    • Developers’ notes: Deathborne is one of the most impactful cooldowns in the game, but at the current scale of Conduits, it’s regularly lasting 50+ seconds. We feel it’s necessary to reign in that duration in PvP.
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Missiles damage increased by 8%.
    • Arcane Blast damage increased by 10%.
    • Clearcasting can no longer be dispelled.
  • Developers’ notes: We feel that Arcane single target damage would benefit from an increase, but also want to offer some dispel protection for one of their critical rotational buffs in Clearcasting. This is a change that we will evaluate further going into Dragonflight as generally, we want magical buffs like these to be dispellable. In this case, we feel there is necessary to help this specialization in the short term.

Monk

  • Mistweaver
    • Reduced cooldown on Zen Focus Tea (PvP Talent) to 30 seconds (was 45).
      • Developers’ notes: Mistweavers are having a difficult time responding to burst damage reliably, as they regularly have to open their primary school in order to catch up. Giving them more access to an interrupt protection is intended to let them respond to burst damage more reliably.
  • Windwalker
    • Rising Sun Kick damage Increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Fists of Fury damage to primary target increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Blackout Kick damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Tiger Palm damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Fist of the White Tiger damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
  • Developers’ notes: As part of our ongoing balance efforts, we’re taking a more aggressive approach towards improving Windwalker Monks’ single-target damage, so that their performance is more competitive in raid situations where their unique strengths may not come to the forefront.

Priest

  • Discipline
    • Blaze of Light (PvP Talent) increases damage to Smite and Penance by 30% (was 15%).
  • Discipline, Shadow
    • Power Word: Shield absorb amount increased by 10% in PvP.
    • Fixed a bug that reduced the value of Power Word: Shield critical strikes in PvP.
  • Developers’ notes: We’re looking to give Discipline more offensive options in PvP but also feel that Power Word: Shield has fallen off in terms of relative strength compared to other parts of the kit.

Rogue

  • Recuperator (Conduit) healing reduced by 50% in PvP.
  • Outlaw
    • Between the Eyes damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Pistol Shot damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Sinister Strike damage increased by 20%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Blade Flurry damage increased to 60% of single target damage (was 50%). This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Enduring Brawler (PvP Talent) stacks up to 15 times (was 20).
  • Developers’ notes: Our intent with these changes is to improve Outlaw in both single target and 5-6 target cleave situations where Blade Flurry should shine. Outlaw isn’t standing out enough in these moments and we hope these changes move us in the right direction. However, in PvP, Enduring Brawler and Recuperator have given Outlaw more survivability than intended and we’ve decided to reduce the max stack count as a result.

Shaman

  • Healing Stream Totem’s healing increased by 20% in PvP.
  • Elemental
    • Raging Vesper Vortex (Kyrian Runecarving Power) damage reduced by 33% in PvP.
    • Earth Shock damage is no longer reduced by 10% in PvP.
  • Enhancement
    • Chain Harvest (Venthyr) damage and healing reduced by 15% in PvP.
  • Restoration
    • Earthen Wall Totem’s (Talent) absorb is no longer reduced by 30% while in PvP.
  • Developers’ notes: For Shaman, we want to address some of the big swing moments created by Vesper Totem and Chain Harvest, but compensate them with more sustained healing, damage and mitigation.

Warlock

  • Destruction
    • Ritual of Ruin (2-piece bonus) now lasts 30 seconds (was unlimited).
    • Summoning a Blasphemy (4-piece bonus) no longer stuns enemies in PvP.
  • Demonology
    • Felguard’s Legion Strike now reduces effectiveness of healing on the target by 25% (was 10%) in PvP.
  • Developers’ notes: With these changes, we’ve set out to address a strategy of disengaging from the fight except in rare moments where the Warlock can setup huge burst through the set bonus. At the same time, we’re trying to give adequate time for the Warlock to respond to Ritual of Ruin proc with a 30 second duration. Also, we’ve increased the mortal strike effect of Demonology’s pet in PvP to help their effective damage.

Warrior

  • Arms
    • Mortal Strike damage increased by 10%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Overpower damage increased by 10%. This change does not apply to PvP.
    • Execute and Condemn damage increased by 15%. This also affects Protection Warriors. This change does not apply to PvP.
  • Developers’ notes: These changes are intended to increase Arms single target performance while not affecting areas where they already excel.
  • Fury
    • Depths of Insanity (Conduit) effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP.
    • Battle Trance (PvP Talent) now generates 3 rage (was 5) every 3 seconds for 18 seconds after using Raging Blow twice in a row on a target.
  • Developers’ notes: 9.2.5 comes with a bug fix where the PvP talent Battle Trance wasn’t being activated by the Raging Blow replacement spell Crushing Blow from the Reckless Abandon talent. The above changes are intended to manage the effective buff Fury will be getting from that interaction.

Items

  • Gladiatior’s Distinction (PvP set) bonus Stamina increased to 500 (was 350).
    • Developers’ notes: In general, damage output is outpacing survivability in PvP leading to a volatile gameplay experience. We’re increasing the Stamina from the PvP trinket set bonus to reduce the effect of damage across the game.
  • Cosmic Gladiator’s Echoing Resolve no longer triggers from or provides immunity to interrupt effects. The tooltip for this will be updated in a future patch.
    • Developers’ notes: While the tooltip explicitly mentions interrupts, we’ve heard the feedback loud and clear that this trinket is removing counterplay that players enjoy. We’ll fix the tooltip in a future hotfix.

 

Sepulcher of the First Ones Adjustments Coming in 9.2.5

Quote from: Blizzard

As Patch 9.2.5 unlocks cross-server Mythic Sepulcher, and as we move into the later months of the tier, the team wants to continue to smooth out pain points for both progression and repeat kills on several bosses in the zone. Including this round of changes, we’ve made quite a few adjustments to Sepulcher in recent weeks, so we wanted to share a bit more context around our goals.

We’ve heard extensive feedback from players running Sepulcher on all difficulties that a number of mechanics in Sepulcher feel too unforgiving, and that there are just too many places where a single error by a single player can cause an unrecoverable wipe. We agree, and several of our recent changes have been aimed at reducing those penalties. This is a major topic of discussion within the team as we plan Dragonflight raid encounters and focus on delivering satisfying progression experiences for players on all raid difficulties.

Below are the changes that will be included in 9.2.5 next week during maintenance, and you’ll see them in the 9.2.5 patch notes:

Sepulcher of the First Ones

  • Artificer Xy’mox
    • Decipher Relic cast time increased to 30 seconds on Mythic difficulty (was 25 seconds).
  • Prototype Pantheon
    • Imprinted Safeguards reduce damage and healing taken by 35% on Mythic difficulty (was 50%).
  • Lihuvim, Principal Architect
    • Lihuvim’s health reduced by 10% on all difficulties.
    • Protoform Schematics health reduced by 10% on all difficulties.
  • Halondrus the Reclaimer
    • Ephemeral Eruption initial damage reduced significantly on Mythic difficulty.
    • Lightshatter Beam increases the damage taken from Lightshatter Beam by 300% on Heroic difficulty (was 500%).
  • Anduin Wrynn
    • Anduin Wrynn’s health reduced by 5% on all difficulties.
    • Monstrous Souls health reduced by 5% on all difficulties.
    • Anduin’s Despair health reduced by 10% on all difficulties.
    • Anduin’s Hope movement speed reduced on Heroic and Mythic difficulty.
    • Remorseless Winter damage reduced by 10% on all difficulties.
    • Hopebreaker damage over time reduced by 15% on all difficulties.
    • Fiendish Soul’s Necrotic Claws cooldown increased by 50% on all difficulties.
  • Lords of Dread
    • Mal’Ganis and Kin’tessa health reduced by 5% on all difficulties.
    • Swarm of Decay and Swarm of Darkness damage reduced by 7.5% on all difficulties.
    • Ravenous Hunger now heals the Inchoate Shadow for 13% on Mythic difficulty (was 10%).
    • Cloud of Carrion no longer disorients when jumping between players on Heroic and Mythic difficulty.
    • Infiltration of Dread duration increased by 10 seconds on Heroic and Mythic difficulty.
  • Rygelon
    • Collapsing Quasar Field duration increased by 50% on Mythic difficulty.
  • The Jailer
    • Rune of Compulsion’s absorb reduced by 33% on Normal and Heroic difficulty, and 10% on Mythic difficulty.
    • Misery no longer knocksback on Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic difficulty.
    • Decimator no longer knocksback on Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.
    • Diverted Life Shield no longer heals on Mythic difficulty.
    • World Crusher produces 2 less Bloods of Azeroth on Mythic difficulty.
    • World Shatterer produces 1 less Blood of Azeroth on Mythic difficulty.
    • Phase 4 is now triggered at 15% Health on Mythic difficulty.

Patch 9.2.5 Launching May 31st/June 1st, A Look at Cross-Faction Instances

Blizzard has just announced that patch 9.2.5 will be launching next week! On release the new Blood Elf and Dark Iron Dwarf heritage weapons will become available as well as the cross faction play in organized pvp, raiding and mythic+! Season 4 will not start until later this summer.

9.2.5 Content Update Arrives June 1

Quote from: Blizzard

The Shadowlands content update 9.2.5 is slated to arrive on June 1 with a variety of features and experiences such as cross-faction play, new questlines for blood elf and Dark Iron dwarf characters, a new PvP arena, and more!

Read on to catch a glimpse of what’s coming to the Shadowlands.

Party with Players from the Opposing Faction!

WoW_9.0_WelcomeBackWeekend_Blog_Thumbnail_1200x675_MN01.jpgCross-faction gameplay is included with the 9.2.5 content update, giving players more grouping options and allowing them to play with their friends from the opposing faction. Read our news post for more about this feature.

Blood Elves and Dark Iron Dwarves, Get Questing!

Two new questlines will help blood elf, and Dark Iron dwarf players earn new rewards in this update.

Blood Elf players completing their questline receive the Elusive Emerald Hawkstrider mount, and blood elf Paladins earn the Blood Knight-themed Ensemble: Blood Knight’s Dedication. Dark Iron dwarf players who complete their questline earn the Grimhowl’s Face Axe mount and the Dark Iron-themed Arsenal: Lavaforge Armaments as a reward.

Test Your Mettle in the Enigma Crucible

The mysterious Enigma Crucible crafted by the Progenitors is the latest PvP arena located within the ancient wonder of Zereth Mortis and will offer players a challenging battlefield to test their skills.

Shadowlands Season 4 Coming Soon

Season 4 will be making its debut later this summer. Keep an eye on WorldofWarcraft.com/news for more details on when Season 4 will be available.

Shadowlands 9.2.5 Content Update Notes

Learn more about the latest changes coming to the Shadowlands by reading through the update notes.

9.2.5 Content Update Notes

Quote from: Blizzard

ACHIEVEMENTS

  • All Covenant Sanctum feature achievements are now visible and count towards your character’s total achievement points, regardless of which covenant your character currently belongs to. Nonetheless, all characters must belong to a Covenant to earn that Covenant’s specific achievements.
  • Tower Ranger criteria now requires The Jailer’s Gauntlet: Layer 4 (was Layer 8).
  • The Dancing Machine achievement text now specifies that the reward is a toy.
  • Anima Cannisters required for Kaal-ed Shot now respawn after General Kaal resets and the Slammed! debuff is no longer removed by immunity effects.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing The Enlightened faction to not count towards the Exalted Reputations achievements.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Azeroth at War achievements to not be obtainable by players.

CHARACTERS

  • Removed the experience point reduction that is applied to level 51–60 characters while in Party Sync.

CLASSES

  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Fixed an issue that caused Bone Shields consumed by Tombstone (Talent) to not reduce the cooldown of Blood Tap by the correct amount.
  • WARLOCK
    • Fixed an issue that caused Scouring Tithe (Kyrian Ability) to grant both the death and survive effects when used against certain enemies.

CROSS-FACTION INSTANCES

  • Players are now able to directly invite members of the opposite faction to a party if you have a BattleTag or Real ID friendship, or if you are members of a cross-faction WoW Community.
  • Premade Groups in the Group Finder listings for Mythic dungeons, raids, or rated arena/RBGs are now open to applicants of both factions, though the group leader may choose to restrict the listing to same-faction applicants if they so choose.
  • WoW Communities now have the option to be cross-faction, while Guilds will remain single-faction.
  • Random matchmade activities like Heroic dungeons, Skirmishes, or Random Battlegrounds will all remain same-faction. [LEARN MORE]
  • The following instances are not cross-faction:
    • Trial of the Champion
    • Trial of the Crusader
    • Vault of Archavon
    • Icecrown Citadel
    • Baradin Hold
    • Siege of Boralus
    • Battle of Dazar’alor
    • Darkmaul Citadel (Exile’s Reach dungeon)

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS

  • SEPULCHER OF THE FIRST ONES
    • Cross-Realm raiding is now available on Mythic difficulty.
  • MYTHIC+
    • With Cross-Faction Instances becoming available, the Cryptic Hero: Shadowlands Season 3 achievement now requires a Mythic+ Rating in the top 0.1% of all players in your region.

ITEMS AND REWARDS

  • Broker Mark of Distinction now increases the Renown of your currently active Covenant to 60 (was 40).
  • Renown catch-up is accelerated through Renown 60 (was 48).
  • These activities will now have a 100% chance to reward 1 Renown upon completion:
    • Mythic and Mythic+ dungeons
    • Torghast Layers 9-16
    • Defeating a Shadowlands raid boss encounter
    • Winning a Rated Battleground
  • Reward boxes from Callings now contain twice as many Grateful Offerings, still scaling with your covenant sanctum’s Anima Conductor level.
  • The Zereth Mortis weekly quest “Patterns Within Patterns” now awards Grateful Offerings.
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Blizzard Shop transmog cosmetics to temporarily disappear from your collection.
  • Fixed an issue where Jingles battle pet would display as “Unknown” when summoned and its wreath and candy cane accessories were the incorrect size in the Pet Journal.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • NEW ARENA: ENIGMA CRUCIBLE
  • SOLO SHUFFLE BRAWL
    • The minimum item level requirement to queue has been raised to 252 (was 239).
    • Fixed an issue that caused some abilities to not be removed from players in between rounds.
    • Fixed an issue that caused a round to not reset properly if a player on each side of the brawl died at the same time.
  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Anti-Magic Zone’s spell damage reduction increased to 50% (was 20%) in PvP combat.
    • Dome of Ancient Shadow (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • WARLOCK
    • Demonic Embrace now increases your Stamina by 20% (was 10%) in PvP combat.
    • Demon Armor (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • AFFLICTION
      • New PvP Talent: Shadowfall – Gain the Nightfall talent with 100% increased chance to gain its effect. If you already have this talent, you may select another in the same row.

PROFESSIONS

  • Increased the experience points earned when crafting Specialized Armor and Jewelry for creating Runecarving items by 400%.

QUESTS

  • Blood Elves can start a quest to earn a new mount, weapon appearance, and the Blood Knight armor set for Blood Elf Paladins by speaking to Liadrin in Oribos. Requirements: Level 60 and Exalted with Silvermoon.
  • Dark Iron Dwarves can start a quest to earn a new mount and weapon appearances by speaking to Anvil-Thane Thurgaden in Shadowforge City, Blackrock Depths (accessed via Mole Machine). Requirements: Level 50.

TORGHAST, TOWER OF THE DAMNED

  • All wings are now open (was 2 wings available per week).
  • Layers 1–8 are now unlocked by default.
  • Layers 9–12 now unlock after completing Layer 8.
  • Layers 13–16 now unlock after completing the previous Layer.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • All search filter dropdowns now have a button that lets you easily remove all active filters.
  • The default hand cursor now has new, higher resolution art for its larger sizes under Interface Options → Accessibility.
  • The Report Player pane has been redesigned, with new categories added.

A Look at Cross-Faction Instances

Quote from: Blizzard

Make frenemies of your enemies when you party with players from the opposing faction!

As initially outlined in a previous post, cross-faction instances will break the faction divide by allowing friends from the opposite faction to play together. It will also expand opportunities for players to pursue their favorite group content.

Grouping Up

To invite members of the opposite faction to a party, players must have a BattleTag or Real ID friendship or be members of a cross-faction WoW Community.

Players will have the ability to find Premade Groups in the Group Finder for dungeons (Normal, Heroic, Mythic, and Mythic+), raids, rated arena/RBGs, and also Torghast. However, the group leader may restrict the listing to same-faction applicants if they choose.

Once in a party, members of the opposite faction will remain unfriendly while outside of instances, though they will be able to communicate through party and raid chat, as well as use /say and /yell within proximity of one another.

WoWClassic_GenericUpdate-StranglethornPvP_Blog-Thumb_1200x675_JM01.jpg

Upon entering a dungeon, raid, or rated PvP match, however, all members will be friendly and able to assist each other in combat, trade loot, earn shared achievements, and otherwise fully engage the same way members of the same faction do.

Guilds

Guilds will remain single-faction, and random matchmade activities like Heroic dungeons, Skirmishes, or Random Battlegrounds will all remain same-faction.

Legacy Instances

WoWClassic_GenericUpdate-Onyxia_Blog-Thumb_1200x675_JM01.jpg

The functionality of the cross-faction instance feature will also apply to legacy instances and is available at all levels. However, there will be several older instances that cross-faction parties cannot enter due to faction-specific components, and they are:

  • Trial of the Champion
  • Trial of the Crusader
  • Vault of Archavon
  • Icecrown Citadel
  • Baradin Hold
  • Siege of Boralus
  • Battle of Dazar’alor
  • Darkmaul Citadel (Exile’s Reach dungeon)

Hotfixes: May 17, 2022

With the weekly reset a large set of nerfs for the later bosses in the Sepulcher of the First Ones is being released:

Quote from: Blizzard

May 17, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Hall of Fame
      • The Horde Hall of Fame is now full and is no longer eligible to be earned.
    • Anduin Wrynn
      • [With realm restarts] Blasphemy duration increased to 12 seconds in all difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Lost Soul duration increased to 40 seconds in all difficulties (was 35 seconds).
      • [With realm restarts] Wicked Star now targets one player at a time in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Players are now invalid targets for Blasphemy for 20 seconds after the effects of Lost Soul expire (was 10 seconds).
      • [With realm restarts] Reduced the health of Grim Reflections by 15% in Mythic difficulty.
    • Rygelon
      • [With realm restarts] Rygelon’s health has been reduced by 5% in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Collapsing Quasar Fields now last 8 seconds (was 6 seconds) in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Dark Collapse damage has been reduced by 25% in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Unstable Quasar radius reduced by 25%, and damage reduced by 20% in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Cosmic Ejection damage-over-time reduced by 33% in Mythic difficulty.
    • The Jailer
      • [With realm restarts] Azerite Radiation increased Arcane damage is now 80% (was 100%) in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Meteor Cleave damage decreased 10% in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Torment initial explosion damage decreased by 10% in all difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Shattering Blast damage over time decreased by 33% in Mythic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Chain Breaker damage decreased by 10% in all difficulties.

Burning Crusade Classic

  • Items and Rewards
    • Tier 6 Belt, Bracers and Boots from Sunwell Plateau are now refundable for 2 hours after purchase.

May 13, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Halondrus
      • Fixed an issue causing Lance to not inflict damage while Halondrus was affected by Relocation Form.

 

Burning Crusade Classic

  • Isle of Quel’Danas
    • The portal from Shattrath City to the Isle of Quel’Danas can now be used without dismounting.
    • The Isle of Quel’Danas quest “Enter, the Deceiver…” should once more be available to players.

May 11, 2022

Cyphers of the First Ones

  • Crystallic Spheroids can now be used in other Shadowlands zones outside of Zereth Mortis.

 

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Prototype Pantheon
      • Resolved an issue where the Prototype of War could incidentally not cast Necrotic Ritual.

May 9, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • The Jailer
      • [With realm restarts] All trapdoors close in Phase 3 on Normal and Raid Finder difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased knockback of Decimator on Normal and Raid Finder difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased knockback of Misery on Normal difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased rate of growth of Defile on Normal difficulty.

Items and Rewards

  • The Antecedent Drape is now properly eligible for conversion at the Creation Catalyst.

Player versus Player

  • [With realm restarts] The Conquest and Valor caps has been removed.

Burning Crusade Classic

  • Dungeons and Raids
    • Black Temple
      • [With realm restarts] Defeating the Shade of Akama encounter will unlock the door to the Den of Mortal Delights.

Raid Rewards Experiments in Season 4, Hotfixes: May 4-5, 2022

Blizzard has released a blue post and answered questions about what their plans are for raid rewards in season 4. The full posts are below, with the main takeaways being:

  • In season 4 there will be vendors that will offer the Shadowlands weapons and raid trinkets at a season 4 item level.
  • Each of these items will cost 1 Puzzling Cartel Dinar and you can earn 3 of these in season 4. This means you can buy a maximum of 3 items from the vendors in the entire season.
  • You can earn them by completing special quests that require you to kill Fated empowered raid bosses.
  • Each week a different Shadowlands raid will be Empowered with the Fated affix, where bosses will have special abilities and offer season 4 item level loot.
  • As a second gearing path, you will be able to earn shards to create an item with which you can upgrade a Fated gear item to season 4 Heroic or Mythic quality.
  • LFR and the world boss related to that raid tier will also have the raid wings empowered with Fated
  • Season 3 Cutting Edge and Ahead of the Curve achievements will be removed when season 4 launches

Raid Rewards Experiments in Season 4

Quote from: Blizzard

Today, we’d like to share some of our rewards plans for Season 4 regarding the acquisition and effectiveness of Raid gearing overall. As we head from 9.2’s Class Sets & Creation Catalyst into Dragonflight, our team has been doing a lot of thinking about our rewards philosophies, including acquiring loot and how it might be improved. Season 4 presents a unique opportunity for us to try some experimental changes that might be too volatile for a regular season, but could still provide us with valuable data and feedback we can use to improve the game long-term. It’s worth noting that the systems we’ll be talking about today are designed around specific goals to fit with Season 4’s shorter runtime – it’s very possible that even if they’re received well, they may undergo significant iteration to match the cadence & intended progression of a normal season of content. Regardless, we want to show that we’re interested in continuing to approach rewards from different angles, and listen to player’s desires for increased bad luck protection and making sure in-game rewards feel like they’re matching player’s efforts. Without further ado, let’s get into some specifics!

Raid Vendors & Limited Currency

Season 4 will feature a trio of broker vendors suspiciously skulking around the Great Vault. Each of these brokers has wares from one of the three Shadowlands raids: Castle Nathria, Sanctum of Domination, and the Sepulcher of the First Ones. They will sell trinkets, weapons, and other special items from their respective raid. Each of these items will have the same price: a single Puzzling Cartel Dinar each, with a catch. You will only be able to get 3 Puzzling Cartel Dinar for the entire season. After spending your last Dinar, the brokers leave town and take their wares with them. Items sold by these vendors will be at the Season 4 Normal ‘Fated’ item level range of 278-285, depending on the item.

To acquire them, enter any Shadowlands Raid after Season 4 begins to start a 3-part questline. These quests will require you to kill a certain number of unique Fated bosses while the Season 4 Raid Affix is active. The quests reward you with one Puzzling Cartel Dinar upon completion and will progress to the next part of the quest (To clarify, unique means killing the same boss during that same week won’t give credit – killing the Tarragrue on Normal and Heroic in the same week will only give 1 kill). At the moment, this is set to require 30 kills, 20 kills, and 10 kills, making your 2nd and 3rd coin come even faster as time goes on – ending up at week 3 being the earliest instance of receiving a Dinar, and week 6 being the earliest you could see the last one.

This system initially came about to mitigate the rotational nature of Season 4’s raids. Each player has fewer chances to see any individual piece of loot when Fated Sylvanas or Fated Jailer is only killable every three weeks, so we really want to see how players respond to the idea of having a limited but deterministic way to target individual pieces from raids. We all have a story of going months and months on end, killing a specific boss every week without ever seeing a desired item drop, and our hope is this goes a long way to curbing extreme bad luck in the worst cases. At the same time, we don’t want to shortcut the experience of actually playing the game – it shouldn’t be possible for someone to simply buy their Best in Slot setup from a vendor week 1 of a given season – and it’s very possible that this implementation still undercuts some of that sense of progressing your character. That said, we’ve heard calls for something like this, and feel Season 4 is the best time to try it out.

Heroic & Mythic Upgrade Items

Additionally, we’re exploring ways for Raiders to upgrade Raid loot as they move up in difficulty. In Season 4, killing bosses on Heroic or Mythic difficulty will drop a ‘shard’ of an upgrade item, and upon collecting enough (currently 20) will combine to upgrade Fated gear to their Heroic or Mythic versions respectively. Unlike the Puzzling Cartel Dinar above, which has a quest you must complete to earn them over time, these upgrade shards will begin dropping on Day 1 of the season and at a 100% droprate, allowing you to capture effort progressing week over week from the get-go. These upgrade items will work on any item with a ‘Fated’ tag, including those sold by the broker vendors previously mentioned. The upgrade system combined with the Puzzling Cartel Dinar vendors will allow players to effectively buy up to 3 pieces of Heroic or Mythic raid gear, assuming you’re doing difficult content enough to build reserves of upgrade shards to begin with.

While having a Heroic or Mythic upgrade item still requires you to have the base item drop for you in some way, this means that the option of running other raid difficulties to get your desired piece is available for people wanting to go the extra mile. Similarly, this allows guilds that start from Normal and move into Heroic, or Heroic and move into Mythic the ability to carry some of their favorite items with them as they progress. Often, if a guild can’t hit a specific breakpoint while progressing (like say a new boss kill, or a Great Vault threshold), it can feel like the time spent reclearing up to those points can be wasted effort. We hope that this creates more value for simply killing bosses with your group, while also allowing those who dip their toes into higher difficulty (like, say, a guild that can only do 3 mythic bosses per week) the ability to ‘save up’ to a moment of excitement that both rewards your effort over time, as well as making it easier to make deeper strides into achieving your raiding goals.

Season 4 is an exciting time where we’re trying lots of things WoW’s never done before, and we’re similarly excited to see how these systems play out for raiders engaging with the new Fated affixes when it all goes live. We’ll be monitoring feedback closely and answering more questions in the thread, so let us know what you think!

Quote from: Blizzard

Dropping in to clarify a few common trends of questions I’ve seen around, then will get back to combing. I want to keep my responses to things related to the Raid rewards as outlined in the post:

What about Tier Sets?

  • Your 9.2 Tier Sets are still active in Season 4, and the Creation Catalyst will remain on with all of its accumulated charges. Tier Tokens won’t be added to Castle Nathria and Sanctum of Domination, as you’ll be able to upgrade any item you get to a higher ilvl piece of Tier just like you can on live right now.

Domination Sockets

  • Shards and Domination bonuses will be disabled entirely for Season 4. We didn’t want to place extra pressure on the tuning of specifically Fated Sanctum to require it, and there was enough of a class/armor type disparity at which specs/classes could potentially wear a 3-set Domination Bonus and their 4-piece vs others that it would create a weird imbalance on those weeks. We’ve also heard from player feedback that it would feel unfair for players who didn’t hold onto Domination Gear to be at such a disadvantage.

LFR/Outdoor

  • Looking for Raid will have a Season 4/Fated Difficulty, and all wings will be available at the start. This is to say if the rotation begins with Castle Nathria being the Fated raid on rotation, all of LFR Nathria will be replaced with Fated LFR Nathria, at higher item levels. LFR also counts for quest progress, so players who don’t full clear a raid for the week can collect what leftover bosses they need from there.

Additionally, the World Boss related to whichever raid is currently Fated will also be scaled up – more difficult, and dropping ilvl 285 Fated gear.

Why only Weapons/Trinkets?

  • As others in this thread have mentioned, neither of these systems are intended to replace the primary method by which players acquire gear – having all of an expansion’s raids be at current item level is something entirely new to WoW, and will create both a lot of powerful combinations of items, as well as a lot of frustration at not receiving them. We wanted the Vendors to be targeted at the pieces of loot we’d already seen are most impactful to a player such as to create an intense negative reaction when situations arise like the post mentions. Many players feel if they can’t get an Edge of Night, they can’t play Rogue in 9.1/9.2. Rarely do players feel they can’t play because they are missing boots or bracers. Focusing in on these higher-tier items keeps these vendors special, and the system focused on that protection, rather than being an alternative/replacement gearing method (which it is not).

Great Vault integration?

  • A common idea so far is if the Great Vault tokens could integrate some of these. While we’re not interested so far in extending the amount of Dinars a player can get in the season, offering some of the heroic or mythic upgrade shards in some form could absolutely be possible, though we’d still want to make certain you can only purchase Heroic or Mythic upgrade shards if you’re actually raiding some amount on those difficulties. Not a guarantee, but not an impossibility.

Oh, I forgot one –

Heroic & Mythic Upgrade shards

  • these don’t upgrade in a linear fashion. this is to say, if you have a Heroic upgrade item, it will take an LFR or Normal item, and make it into Heroic. Similarly, if you have a Mythic Upgrade Item, you can target LFR, Normal OR Heroic, and it’ll transform into Mythic. They don’t have to be in sequence – so primary Mythic raiders can choose to ignore Heroic if they desire.

Hotfixes: May 4-5, 2022

Quote from: Blizzard

May 5, 2022

Burning Crusade Classic

  • Player versus Player
    • Vindicator’s gear has universally had its cost reduced in Honor Points, and Marks of Honor are no longer required for any piece, as intended.
    • Once Season 4 begins next week, Guardian’s Honor pieces will have their Marks of Honor cost universally reduced by 50%, but their Honor cost remains as before, as intended.

May 4, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Anduin Wrynn
      • Increased the time it takes for players to be susceptible to Blasphemy after returning to their body.
  • Theater of Pain
    • Non-boss enemies
      • Corrected an issue that caused Ancient Captain’s Demoralizing Shout and Commanding Presence to increase damage taken when charmed by players.

Achievements

  • World Events
    • “School of Hard Knocks” is no longer required for the Children’s Week achievement “For the Children.”

Warcraft® Arclight Rumble™ Revealed!

Blizzard has announced their new Warcraft mobile game: Arclight Rumble

Quote from: Blizzard

Join us in a new lighthearted and whimsical game where you’re in command. Easy to learn but hard to master, Warcraft® Arclight Rumble™ tests players’ ability to create miniature armies to effectively overcome each mission’s unique challenges.

Audio Description of Cinematic

Designed from the ground up for mobile and set in the beloved Warcraft universe, Warcraft Arclight Rumble invites players to build armies with their favorite heroes and villains from Warcraft and battle it out in exciting scenarios designed to test their tactical wits.

In the fantasy world of Azeroth, Warcraft Arclight Rumble is a dazzling new sensation that’s sweeping inns and taverns across the land—a wonderous mechanical amusement machine powered by the mad wizardry of gnomish engineering, where Azeroth’s greatest heroes and most fearsome villains come to life in miniature to do battle.

Build your forces from collections of minis, starting with your armies’ Leaders—which include Warcraft notables like the Warsong chieftain Grommash Hellscream and Archmage Jaina Proudmoore—and fill in your rosters with rank-and-file Troop minis and powerful Spells. Each single-player mission presents its own distinct, strategic puzzle to solve, and players will have to nimbly adapt their tactics in real-time to overcome these frantic challenges.

  • Collect over 60 characters from across the Warcraft universe—brought to life as lovingly sculpted tabletop miniatures.
  • Triumph through an epic single-player campaign with over 70 missions.
  • Play cooperatively with your friends or put their armies to the test in competitive player-versus-player mode.
  • Engage in dungeons or take on demanding co-operative raids.
  • Join a guild, engage in PvP, and much more.

Check out our gameplay overview for more details.

Join the Beta

Pre-register on the Warcraft Arclight Rumble official site today. Android users can also pre-register for beta by visiting the Google Play store now. Stay tuned to the official site for information on when the beta becomes available to iOS.

Warcraft Arclight Rumble Minimum Requirements

Available on iOS (6S and up) and Android (S7 and up).

Stay on top of all the latest Warcraft Arclight Rumble news by following us on the official site and on our social channels official site and on our social channels Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.

Hotfixes: May 2, 2022

With the weekly reset this week we’re getting a new round of large amount of class and raid tuning (and a couple PvP changes too)!

Quote from: Blizzard

May 2, 2022

Classes

  • Death Knight
    • Blood
      • [With realm restarts] (2) Set Bonus: Maximum Strength stack cap is now 40 (was 75).
  • Hunter
    • Ambuscade (Conduit) will now grant the correct amount of cooldown reduction to Disengage at item level 278.
    • Beast Mastery
      • [With realm restarts] All damage abilities increased by 4%.
        • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
  • Monk
    • Windwalker
      • [With realm restarts] All damage abilities increased by 4%.
        • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
  • Rogue
    • Outlaw
      • [With realm restarts] All damage abilities increased by 4%.
  • Priest
    • Holy
      • Guardian Spirit will no longer fail to heal an ally who receives multiple fatal blows at the same time.
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • [With realm restarts] All damage abilities increased by 4%.
  • Warlock
    • Affliction
      • [With realm restarts] All damage abilities increased by 4%.

 

Dungeons and Raids

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    • Vigilant Guardian
      • Fixed an issue where dying with the Unstable Core could cause it to become non-interactive.
    • Lihuvim, Principal Architect
      • Lihuvim’s corpse can no longer become stuck in the air if killed while casting Realignment.
      • [With realm restarts] Acquisitions Automa’s Detonation radius reduced to 20 yards (was 40) on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] The cast time of Detonation has been increased to 2.5 seconds (was 2 seconds) on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
    • Artificer Xy’mox
      • [With realm restarts] Xy Spellslinger health reduced by 20%.
      • [With realm restarts] Debilitating Ray periodic damage reduced by 20%.
    • Prototype Pantheon
      • [With realm restarts] Wildstorm has been removed from Normal and Raid finder difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Sinful Projections has been removed from Heroic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased the health of Necrotic Ritualists by 30% health on Normal difficulty, 15% health on Heroic difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased the health of Withering Seeds by 30% health on Normal and Raid Finder difficulties, 20% health on Heroic difficulty, and 10% health on Mythic difficulty, but also resolved a bug that caused them to trigger an Invigorating Bloom at 90% health instead of 100% health as the spell description states.
      • [With realm restarts] Resolved a scaling issue causing the Withering Seeds to increase their health too steeply on larger raid sizes.
    • Halondrus the Reclaimer
      • Fixed an issue causing damage from Lance and Lightshatter Beam to ignore some damage reduction effects.
      • Fixed an issue causing Volatile Charges to break if the player carrying the Volatile Charge disconnected.
      • [With realm restarts] Lightshatter Beam damage decreased by 30% on Raid Finder, Normal and Heroic difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Reclaim’s periodic damage effect scales more slowly on Heroic difficulty.
    • Skolex, the Insatiable Ravener
      • [With realm restarts] Missile travel time for Devouring Blood increased to 2.5s (was 2s) on Heroic difficulty.
    • Dausegne, the Fallen Oracle
      • [With realm restarts] Duration of Disintegration Halo debuff lowered to 5s (was 6s) on Heroic difficulty.
    • Rygelon
      • [With realm restarts] Increased the duration of Collapsing Quasar Field to 10 seconds on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased Rygelon’s health by 5% on Heroic difficulty.
    • The Jailer
      • [With realm restarts] All trapdoors will now close in Phase 3 on Normal difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased knockback of Decimator on Normal and Raid Finder difficulties.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased knockback of Misery on Normal difficulty.
      • [With realm restarts] Decreased rate of growth of Defile on Normal difficulty.

 

  • Tazavesh, The Veiled Market
    • Fixed an issue causing Bazaar Strongarms to sometimes ignore a player carrying market goods.
    • P.O.S.T. Master
      • Fixed an issue where the P.O.S.T. Master was missing a boss frame.
  • Mythic+
    • Encrypted Affix
      • Fixed a bug that would cause two sets of Encrypted Relics to spawn with Amarth, the Harvester after the boss reset in The Necrotic Wake.
      • Fixed a bug that could sometimes prevent Encrypted Relics from spawning with the dueling warlords before Xav the Unfallen in Theater of Pain.

 

Player versus Player

  • Items
    • [With realm restarts] Gladiator’s Echoing Resolve now increases the duration of crowd control by 25% (was 20%).
    • [With realm restarts] Gladiator’s Echoing Resolve now lasts 12 seconds (was 15 seconds).
    • [With realm restarts] Gladiator’s Echoing Resolve no longer increases the duration of root effects.
    • [With realm restarts] Gladiator’s Echoing Resolve no longer causes the target to become immune to root effects.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight – Interview Roundup Part 5

A second round of interviews for Dragonflight has taken place. Here’s a summary of the new bits of information in one list. The links to the full interviews are listed down at the bottom of this page.

  • They are still figuring things out but they want to make nearly everything account wide except for gear. The example was given for dragon riding that after you earn a speed increase you shouldn’t have to earn it again on your alt. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • The Dracthyr starting experience has a story of discovery. You awaken after an unknown amount of time in stasis and you figure out what has been going on together with other Dracthyr. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • The Dracthyr starting area will be reused for non-starting experience gameplay as well. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Not all reputations will have the renown type system (Reputation 2.0), only “major factions” will have it. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Professions might be a good home to carry over the Creation Catalyst type functionality where you can craft catch up tier gear. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • There are no current plans for a mission table. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Battle for Azeroth dungeons are also not on the table for M+ in the first seasons. They are looking at some Mists of Pandaria dungeons. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • It’s unlikely that they’ll go all the way back to classic dungeons for M+. They’re not suitable for modern gameplay. Instead they have drawn the line at Mists of Pandaria for now. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Evokers will use int items. In terms of weapons, mainly things that shamans can use. Weapons like daggers, fist weapons, staves, axes, swords (but not shields). (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • In the short term Evokers will not be able to do the Mage Tower, but in the long term they’re looking at exploring that option. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • An Evoker tanking spec in the long term is unlikely. At its core the Evoker is a spellcaster class. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • They are confirming that BfA will remain the default new player experience. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Calia Menethil will be involved in Patch 9.2.5 content (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • In the longterm you will still be able to use regular flying on the Dragon Isles. But at launch you can only fly with Dragon Riding. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • Zereth Mortis is a pretty close look at how endgame play will philosophically look. 9.2 didn’t carry forward renown or soulbind progression. There will just be more different things to do in the new expansion. (Taliesin & Evitel)
  • They’re still looking at what kind of group/raid Utility the Evoker will provide. One of the things they’re experimenting with is a raid cooldown called Blessing of the Bronze which reduces movement speed abilities cooldown. (MrGM)
  • Evokers use a new resource called Essence. It regenerates on its own. (MrGM)
  • In terms of racial abilities the Dracthyr have Wing Buffet (knock enemy back), Tail Swipe (knock enemy up), Chosen Identity (barbershop changes are free) and other things they are still working on. (MrGM)
  • There won’t be a big animation when switching between dragon and visage form. (MrGM)
  • Evokers triage clumps of players. They use big breathes. Their big healing cooldown has the feeling of Alexstrasza flying over soldiers and healing those at the Wrath Gate. (MrGM)
  • The charging ability cannot be overcharged. After you reach the max charging time it will wait 3 more seconds before it casts automatically. (MrGM)
  • They’re working on new target textures/art on the floor to indicate where cones and abilities will be cast. (MrGM)
  • New Evoker spell – Soar. You flap your wings, burst forward and hover in place. You’ll be able to cast while moving with it. (MrGM)
  • They want to move towards a world where the race of a character doesn’t limit which class you can be. Rogue, Mages and Priests will be available to all races in 10.0.(MrGM)
  • In addition to lore, things like racial chargers, racial totems limit how quickly they can open each class up to other races. (MrGM)
  • They don’t know if they will be able to make it possible to share talent trees as an export to be shared outside of the game (such as for written guides) in 10.0. (MrGM)
  • As you spend points in the talent system you reach gates, much like the old system, there are limits to spend more points in the talent tree before you can move further down the tree. (MrGM)
  • Between levels 10 and 60, the spells granted by the spellbook are very sparse. Most of your spells you will earn via talent points. (MrGM)
  • It’s possible that you might have access to more than 1 covenant ability with the new talent trees. (MrGM)
  • In terms of new talents they’re likely to be new passives that adjust your rotation. (MrGM)
  • They’re looking at new PvP brawls. They’re looking at the old Highmaul Coliseum and Legion PvP World Quest free for all zones for inspiration. (MrGM)
  • Entry level PvP gear could be crafted via Professions. (MrGM)
  • The Gladiator mount will be a custom Dragon Riding drake you can unlock. (MrGM)
  • The Dracthyr Evoker can only be 1 per realm. Additionally after the first you create you can only create one once you have a level 50 character. (MrGM)
  • The Dracthyr are their own racial mount. (MrGM)
  • Gladiator Stance will not return. (MrGM)
  • Dragon Riding will not have combat to begin with, but might be added later on. (Asmongold)
  • Things like the Protoform Synthesis system is what they want to do more of. (Asmongold)
  • They want to look at the battlegrounds system as a whole before adding new ones, such as having seasonal rotations. (Asmongold)
  • They do want to bring back Master Looter but it’s technically hard to achieve quickly due to the Personal Loot system having been built up the last 6 years. (Asmongold)
  • They do see Addons becoming too computational, telling you what to do, as a problem but they do not have a solution yet. (Asmongold)

Full interviews:
Taliesin & Evitel
MrGM
Asmongold

Interviews Part 1
Interviews Part 2
Interviews Part 3
Interviews Part 4