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Category: The War Within

The War Within Beta Test Begins June 5!

Quote from: Blizzard

The World of Warcraft®: The War Within™ beta test begins June 5! Over the course of the test, we’ll be inviting community veterans, press, fansites, friends, and family to check out the upcoming expansion and give us feedback. Players who purchase or who upgrade to the Epic Edition of The War Within will also gain immediate access to the beta and gain a minimum three-day early access to the expansion.

Players selected to participate* will receive an email invitation directing them to download the game client directly from the Battle.net desktop app. Players who purchase the Epic Edition may also receive email notifications. As always, please be aware of phishing attempts—if you’re unsure whether your invitation is legitimate, please log in to your Battle.net account to verify that there is a The War Within beta license attached (under Your Game Accounts).

Getting Started

Join us in testing The War Within. Players who have opted in can be selected to be testers, and invitations will go out regularly throughout the test. If selected to participate in the beta test, your Battle.net account will already be flagged for access. Players who upgrade to the Epic Edition of The War Within will also gain immediate access to the beta.

  • Make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.
  • Run the Battle.net® desktop app—it may need to update itself if you haven’t run it recently. If you don’t have the app installed, get started here.
  • Once Battle.net is installed and updated, select World of Warcraft from the list of games.
  • In the Game Version drop-down menu above the Play button, choose The War Within (listed under In Development) option, then click Install.
  • Allow installation to complete, click Play, and select any available Test Servers.
  • Create a new test character or use the character copy to import your existing Dragonflight character.
  • Enter the game and test the available content.

If you have issues installing and operating The War Within Beta, please check our Common Technical Issues and Solutions to begin troubleshooting.

What’s Available in the Beta?

New systems, the complete leveling experience, zones, dungeons, delves, Warbands, and the new playable Earthen are all available in the beta. Raid testing will come at a later time.

The Zones of Khaz Algar- Designated Sector AR-934

Beneath the surface of Azeroth, an expansive world exists, fraught with danger and waiting to be explored.

...

The Isle of Dorn

Discover the land of Khaz Algar, off the western shores of Pandaria and home to the Earthen. Their capital city, Dornogal, will become the new meeting ground for the Horde and Alliance.

...

The Ringing Deep

This gigantic cavern serves as the home of the Machine Speakers, Earthen who maintain the gigantic Titan machines of old.

...

Hallowfall

Lit by a massive crystal at its center, this bright underground zone is home to the Arathi who are engaged in a continuing battle against the nerubians.

...

Azj-Kahet

The pinnacle of nerubian society where Xal’atath, Harbinger of the Void, has been gathering and mutating nerubian forces to create an unstoppable army.

For players who are concerned about entering into a space filled with spiders, there will be an arachnophobia filter that can be turned on which will convert spider creatures into crabs.

Meet the Earthen

We’ve met Titan-forged Earthen before in Ulduar and other places, but this society of Earthen has been isolated within Khaz Algar for a long while and have developed their own manners and customs. Visually, they are a bit larger, and gem encrusted.

Earthen will also unlock as a playable race. Replenishing the culture’s dwindling numbers by either joining the Horde or the Alliance. Players will be able to choose either faction to begin their journey.

There are many customizations that will be coming for these Earthen including different gem encrustations, beards for all body types, skin colorizations, and more.

Dungeons

Similar to the launch of previous expansions, there will be 4 level-up dungeons and 4 maximum-level dungeons that are available in each of the four new zones.

Level-Up Dungeons

  • The Rookery
  • The Stonevault
  • Priory of the Sacred Flame
  • City of Threads

Maximum Level

  • Cinderbrew Meadery
  • Darkflame Cleft
  • The Dawnbreaker
  • Old City

If you don’t want to use the Dungeon Finder to take part in dungeons with other players, you can continue the campaign story with Follower Dungeons which will be available to play through in all level-up dungeons.

Nerub’ar Palace Raid Dungeon

The Nerub’ar Palace raid dungeon will offer eight boss encounters. Located in Azj-Kahet, it will result in the culmination of the story we see play out involving the machinations of the nerubian empire and Queen Ansurek’s collaboration with Xal’atath.

Players can also expect new tier rewards for their valiant efforts.

New Features

  • Delves: Deep beneath the surface lies treasure vaults waiting to be discovered. Explore these world instances solo or with up to four friends, along with an NPC companion, to defeat bosses and gain epic end-game loot.

Delves New Mechanical Mount Reward

Mix and match customizations to make your new mount your own.

  • Warbands: Expand the potential of your alternate characters with account-wide progression across your family of characters on your Battle.net account. Share your Warband Bank access, War Within Renown, achievements, collections, and more. Visit our latest article to learn more about Warbands.
  • Hero Talents: Rise to new heights of power with new Hero Talent trees. Each class specialization has access to two choices of self-contained Hero Talent trees inspired by iconic Warcraft universe archetypes. Revisit our previous Hero Talent previews to get a glimpse at what is in development.

 *Please note many of these trees have been updated since the original previews.

The War Within Alpha Development Notes 29 May 2024

Quote from: Blizzard

Below are the following changes and updates in today’s build of The War Within Alpha:

CHARACTERS

  • New Human Racial: No Place Like Home – Your Hearthstone cooldown is reduced by 5 minutes and gains an additional charge. Replaces Diplomacy.

CLASSES

  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Deathbringer
      • Wave of Souls damage increased by 50%.
      • Exterminate second scythe damage increased by 50%.
    • Rider of the Apocalypse
      • Mograine’s Heart Strike damage increased by 250%.
      • Trollbane’s Obliterate damage increased by 33%.
      • Trollbane’s Obliterate cast frequency increased by 100%.
      • Nazgrim’s Scourge Strike damage increased by 100%.
      • Nazgrim’s Scourge Strike cast frequency increased by 100%.
      • Whitemane’s Death Coil damage increased by 100%.
    • San’layn
      • Incite Terror has been updated – Vampiric Strike, Heart Strike and Scourge Strike cause your targets to take 1% increased Shadow damage, up to 5% for 15 seconds. Vampiric Strike benefits 300% more from this effect.
    • Blood
      • Many talents have moved locations or have had their pathing updated.
      • New Talent: Bone Collector – When you would pull an enemy, generate 1 charge of Bone Shield.
      • New Talent: Ossified Vitriol – When you lose a Bone Shield charge the damage of your next Marrowrend is increased by 15%, stacking up to 75%.
      • Tightening Grasp now Silences enemies for 3 seconds when they are pulled and no longer increases the damage enemies take from you when they are pulled by Gorefriends Grasp.
      • Blooddrinker now reduces the damage the enemy deals to you by 20% while channeling and for an additional 5 seconds after a channeling it fully. Now also generates 20 additional Runic Power over its duration.
      • Consumption now also causes your Blood Plague damage to occur 50% more quickly for 8 seconds and generates 2 Runes.
      • Bonestorm no longer costs Runic Power. Costs up to 10 Bone Shield Charges and lasts 1 second for each charge consumed. Generates 1 Bone Shield charge every 1 second while active.
      • Reinforced Bones now also lets Bone Shield stack 2 additional times.
      • Heartbreaker’s Runic Power per target hit increased to 2 (was 1). Now a 1 point talent (was 2).
      • Perseverance of the Ebonblade’s Versatility bonus increased to 6%, up from 4%. Now a 1 point talent (was 2).
      • Shattering Bone now a 1 point talent (was 2).
      • Red Thirst reduces the cooldown on Vampiric Blood by 2 seconds (was 1 second). Now a 1 point talent (was 2).
      • Crimson Scourge now learned at level 21.
      • Death’s Caress now learned at level 23.
    • Frost
      • New Talent: Hyperpyrexia – Your Runic Power spending abilities have a chance to additionally deal 30% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds.
    • Unholy
      • New Talent: Festering Scythe – Every 20 Festering Wound you burst empowers Festering Strike to become Festering Scythe for 12 seconds. Festering Scythe: Sweep through all enemies within 14 yards in front of you, dealing Shadow damage and infecting them with 2-3 Festering Wounds.
      • New Talent: Decomposition – Virulent Plague has a chance to abruptly flare up, dealing 50/100% of the damage it dealt to the target over the last 4 seconds. When this effect triggers, the duration of your active minions are increased by 1 second, up to 3 seconds. 2-point talent.
      • Infected Claws moved to the node after Ghoulish Frenzy.
  • DEMON HUNTER
    • Aldrachi Reaver
      • Wounded Quarry now always procs bonus damage while Reaver’s Mark is on your target. Soul fragment generation is still a chance.
      • Reaver’s Mark duration increased to 20 seconds.
      • Art of the Glaive activation thresholds doubled.
      • Intent Pursuit cooldown reduction increased to 4 seconds.
      • Evasive Action no longer extends Tactical Retreat fury generation periodic.
      • Evasive Action no longer resets Initiative.
      • Reaver’s Glaive damage increased by 200%.
  • DRUID
    • Druid of the Claw
      • Ravage and Dreadful Wound damage increased by 10%.
      • Dreadful Wound now reduces damage dealt to you by 4% for Feral and 10% for Guardian.
      • Feral’s Aggravate Wounds now triggers from any ability that costs Energy.
      • Empowered Shapeshifting increases the damage of Mangle by 10% (was 5%) and the damage of Swipe and Shred by 3% (was 5%).
      • Strike for the Heart now increases ability critical strike chance and critical strike damage by 6% (was 8%).
      • Strike for the Heart now causes Mangle to heal Guardian Druids for 1% of their maximum health.
      • Feral’s Wildpower Surge now increases damage of your next Swipe by 50% (was 100%) or your next Mangle by 200% (was 100%).
      • Guardian’s Wildpower Surge now increases the damage of your next Ferocious Bite or Rip by 100% (was 50%).
      • Wildshape Mastery’s retention of Bear Form stats in Cat Form also retains Bear Form’s resistance to being critically struck or parried.
    • Feral
      • Primal Wrath range increased to 10 yards (was 8).
      • Added a connector between Primal Wrath and Pouncing Strikes in the talent tree.
      • Rampant Ferocity’s damage increased by up to 50% when the player spends extra Energy on Ferocious Bite.
      • Thrashing Claws now requires players to know Thrash in order to apply the bleed from Thrash.
    • Restoration
      • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase.
      • Tranquility initial healing increased by 400%.
      • Tranquility’s initial heal now decreases its healing beyond 5 targets.
      • Tranquility’s heal over time effect is no longer increased while out of a raid environment.
  • EVOKER
    • Chronowarden
      • Time Convergence no longer grants Stamina when using a defensive cooldown longer than 45 seconds. It now also specifies that it only functions when casting “non-defensive abilities”.
    • Augmentation
      • New Passive: Sense Power – While enabled, allies with their major cooldown active will be highlighted in the game field and will display a buff icon on party and raid frames. Learned automatically. Can be toggled on/off.
      • Prescience has been updated – When cast without a friendly target, the smart-targeting will now prefer damage role players who have their major cooldowns active.
    • Devastation
      • Feed the Flames once again triggers a Firestorm after casting 10 Pyres. This is in addition to its new effect of increasing Pyre and Disintegrate damage while they are inside the Firestorm.
      • Snapfire can now trigger from both Living Flame and Pyre.
    • Preservation
      • Dream Flight healing increased by 100% outside of raid.
        • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase. We’d also like to note that we are making an exception in the case of Dream Flight as we feel the healing increase outside of raid is a more appropriate tool for consistency as otherwise the falloff of its healing would make its effectiveness inconsistent in raid scenarios.
      • Mana cost of Emerald Blossom reduced by 15%.
      • Flow State can now trigger from Empower spells cast from Stasis.
      • Threads of Fate can no longer trigger from Empower spells cast from Stasis.
        • Developer’s note: There is inconsistency here, but it’s necessary to balance Threads of Fate between Augmentation and Preservation. Threads of Fate tooltip also indicates “casting an Empower spell” while Flow State does not use the keyword “casting.”
  • HUNTER
    • Survival
      • Lunge no longer increases attack range by 3 yards.
  • MAGE
    • Time Anomaly has been updated – Now grants Brain Freeze instead of Fingers of Frost for Frost Mages.
    • New Talent: Inspired Intellect – Arcane Intellect grants you an additional 3% Intellect. Choice node with Time Anomaly.
    • Sunfury
      • Gravity Lapse now hits 5 targets (was 3).
    • Spellslinger
      • Fixed an issue that prevented Frost and Arcane Splinters from interacting with damage bonuses and proc effects such as Touch of the Magi.
      • Arcane
        • Spellfrost Teachings has been redesigned – Direct damage from Splinters has a 3% chance to reset the cooldown of Arcane Orb/Frozen Orb and increase all damage dealt by your Arcane Orbs/Frozen Orbs by 50% for 10 seconds.
        • The location of Force of Will and Spellfrost Teachings has swapped.
        • Arcane Splinter damage reduced by 50%.
        • Embedded Arcane Splinter damage reduced by 50%.
        • Controlled Instincts cleave effect no longer damages the primary target.
        • Controlled Instinct Arcane Splinter cleave percentage reduced to 20% (was 30%).
        • Embedded Splinter duration increased to 18 seconds.
          • Developer’s note: Splinters were benefitting from Pandemic dot extensions unintentionally, which was extending their uptime to 20 seconds from the stated 16 seconds. This was creating adverse effects and durations when consuming Embedded Splinters or applying / maintaining the Embedded Splinter DoTs. To compensate for the uptime loss from this bug fix, we’re increasing the base duration of Embedded Splinters to 18 seconds.
    • Arcane
      • Leydrinker proc chance reduced to 10% (was 15%).
      • Arcane Surge is now guaranteed to generate Clearcasting.
        • Developer’s note: Arcane Surge was a reliable source of Clearcasting that Arcane Mages lost with the removal of mana-based Clearcasting procs. We’re making Arcane Surge proc Clearcasting baseline to ensure you’re rolling into your burns with some more Clearcasting availability.
      • Arcane Blast now has a 5% increased chance to generate Clearcasting.
        • Developer’s note: Clearcasting availability has marginally decreased in pure single target scenarios. We’re buffing up Arcane Blast’s chance to proc Clearcasting to compensate.
      • Spark of the Magi has been redesigned – Now makes your next Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, and Arcane Missiles echo for 25% extra damage (was increase the damage dealt by these spells).
        • Developer’s note: This updated behavior will allow you to properly benefit from the Spark of the Magi damage bonus on an Arcane Barrage you fired before Touch of the Magi is applied.
      • Mastery: Savant now properly increases the damage dealt by Arcane Surge.
      • Aether Attunement has been redesigned – Every 3 times you consume Clearcasting, you gain Aether Attunement.
      • Aether Attunement primary target damage increase reduced to 100% (was 150%).
      • Aether Attunement secondary target damage increase reduced to 50% (was 100%).
        • Developer’s note: While we’re still committed to maintaining minimal buff-tracking for Arcane, we’re also being sensitive to the desire for Arcane Mages to be able to reliably acquire and hold effects for use in their burst windows and AOE moments– both of which Aether Attunement excels at. We feel this new design strikes a nice balance that makes the effect easier to track, reliable, and at a higher frequency to help add more moments of excitement for Arcane in AOE.
      • Resonance and Arcing Cleave have swapped locations.
    • Fire
      • New Talent: Charring Embers – Phoenix Flames applies Charring Embers to all enemies it damages, increasing their damage taken from you by 5% for 12 seconds.
      • Charring Embers moved to Gate 2.
      • Charring Embers now increases the damage you deal to affected targets by 4% (was 6%).
      • Charring Embers has been removed.
        • Developer’s note: We’ve been listening to the feedback regarding Charring Embers and the tracking / gameplay behind it and have opted to remove it. We’re interested in preserving the gameplay of the new Phoenix Reborn and From the Ashes, but we feel that they can comfortably exist without Charring Embers.
      • Call of the Sun King no longer grants 15% increased Phoenix Flames damage and instead makes Phoenix Flames always critically strike.
      • Alexstrasza’s Fury no longer makes Phoenix Flames always critically strike.
      • From the Ashes now grants 15% increased Phoenix Flames damage.
      • From the Ashes is now in Gate 3.
      • Surging Blaze has returned to Gate 1.
      • Firestarter’s position has changed.
      • Phoenix Reborn now requires 25 hits (was 20).
      • Wildfire has returned and is now in Gate 2.
      • Ashen Feather is now in Gate 2 on a choice node with Alexstrazsa’s Fury.
      • Inflame is now located in Gate 2.
      • New Talent: Burning Blood – Damage dealt to targets below 30% health is increased by 10%.
        • This talent is not yet implemented.
      • New Talent: Heat Shimmer – Damage from Ignite has a 5% chance to make your next Scorch deal 25% increased damage and deal damage as though your target was below 30% health.
        • This talent is not yet implemented.
      • New Talent: Sparking Cinders – Living Bomb explosions have a 15% chance to increase the damage of your next Flamestrike or Pyroblast.
      • Controlled Destruction increases damage taken from Ignite by 0.5%, stacking up to 50 times (was 1%, stacking up to 25 times).
  • MONK
    • Mistweaver
      • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase.
      • Revival healing increased by 400%.
      • Revival now decreases its healing beyond 5 targets.
      • New Talent: Lotus Infusion – Allies with Renewing Mist receive 15% more healing from you and Renewing Mist’s duration is increased by 2 seconds. Choice node with Chi Harmony.
        • Developer’s note: We’d like to offer a more passive option focused on AoE healing against Chi Harmony. Chi Harmony now restricting the movement of Renewing Mist for its duration has its pros and cons and we feel this addition opens up optionality a little more particularly in raid scenarios.
      • Invigorating Mist no longer counts full health allies among its splash cap, but its healing has been decreased.
    • Windwalker
      • Abilities affected by Ordered Elements, Dance of Chi-Ji, or Blackout Kick! now contribute to Drinking Horn Cover, Spiritual Focus, and Heart of the Jade Serpent as if their full Chi value was spent.
      • New Talent: Ferociousness – Critical Strike chance increased by 2%. This effect is increased by 100% while Xuen, the White Tiger is active.
      • Mark of the Crane is now learned baseline.
      • Crane Vortex now occupies Mark of the Crane’s previous location.
      • Dual Threat has moved to Crane Vortex’s previous location and its damage has been increased.
  • PALADIN
    • Holy
      • Avenging Crusader no longer costs Holy Power, grants an additional charge of Crusader Strike for its duration, and its duration is increased by 3 seconds.
      • Crusader’s Might now additionally reduces the cooldown of Judgment.
      • Holy Light’s cast time reduced to 2 seconds (was 2.5 seconds).
      • Infusion of Light now increases the healing of Holy Light (was grants Holy Power).
      • Inflorescence of the Sunwell now increases the additional healing from Infusion of Light for Holy Light (was grants Holy Power).
    • Retribution
      • Radiant Glory’s Wake of Ashes now grants 8/10 seconds of Avenging Wrath or Crusade (was 10/12 seconds).
      • Radiant Glory’s each Holy Power spent has a chance to grant you 4/5 seconds of Avenging Wrath or Crusade (was 5/6 seconds).
      • Divine Wrath now extends the duration of Radiant Glory separately. New Tooltip – Increases the duration of Avenging Wrath and Crusade by 3 seconds, and Radiant Glory by 1.5 seconds.
  • PRIEST
    • Voidweaver
      • Voidwraith damage reduced by 50%.
      • Void Flay damage reduced by 25%.
      • No Escape reduces enemy movement speed by up to 70% (was 80%).
      • Discipline
        • Voidheart increases Atonement healing by 10% (was 20%).
        • Collapsing Void damage reduced by 50%.
        • Void Blast damage reduced by 50%.
    • Oracle
      • New Talent: Divine Providence – Premonition gains an additional charge.
      • New Talent: Desperate Measures – Desperate Prayer lasts an additional 10 seconds. Angelic Bulwarks’ absorption effect is increased by 15% of your maximum health.
      • New Talent: Save the Day – For 6 seconds after casting Leap of Faith, you may cast it a second time for free, ignoring its cooldown.
      • New Talent: Clairvoyance – After casting Premonition of Solace, your next Premonition grants all of your Premonition effects at 100% effectiveness.
      • Premonition now only changes to the next spell in the sequence when Premonition is cast.
      • Prompt Deliverance has been removed and replaced with Save the Day.
      • Divine Feathers now also increases the movement speed bonus of Angelic Feather by 10%.
      • Perfect Vision is now a choice against Fatebender and reduced the cooldown of Premonition by 15 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Fatebender now increases the effects of Premonition by 30% and no longer has conditional requirements.
      • Narrowed Visions has been removed and replaced with Divine Providence.
      • Divine Providence is in Perfect Vision’s previous location.
      • Preventive Measures no longer increases the value of Power Word: Shield for Holy, or Prayer of Mending for Discipline. Bonuses increased to 15% (was 10%).
      • Assured Safety no longer causes Power Word: Shield to trigger Prayer of Mending for Discipline, and no longer causes Prayer of Mending to trigger a Power Word: Shield for Discipline.
      • Assured Safety now applies 2 stacks of Prayer of Mending (was 1) and applies a Power Word: Shield at 25% effectiveness (was 20%).
      • Grand Reveal has been removed and replaced with Clairvoyance.
      • Discipline
        • New Talent: Prophet’s Will – Your Flash Heal and Power Word: Shield are 30% more effective when cast on yourself.
      • Holy
        • New Talent: Prophet’s Will – Your Flash Heal, Heal, and Holy Word: Serenity are 30% more effective when cast on yourself.
    • Discipline
      • Developer’s note: We would like Rapture to be a more satisfying cooldown that flows well with the rotation. With that goal in mind, we’re removing the time pressure aspect of the cooldown and increasing the impact of each Power Word: Shield, so that it can be used to triage damage in a more careful and interesting way.
      • Rapture increases the absorption of your next 3 Power Word: Shields by 80% (was increases by 40% and lasts 8 seconds).
      • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase.
      • Luminous Barrier absorb amount increased by 400%.
      • Luminous Barrier now decreases its absorb amount beyond 5 targets.
    • Holy
      • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase.
      • Divine Hymn healing increased by 400%.
      • Divine Hymn now decreases its healing beyond 5 targets.
  • SHAMAN
    • Totemic
      • Totemic Hero Talent tree is now fully implemented.
      • New Totem model for Surging Totem added.
    • Restoration
      • Developer’s note: We are making some changes to raid healing cooldowns in The War Within to increase their effectiveness in content with less than 20 players. Our goal is to make these spells feel powerful in all forms of content, particularly smaller dungeon, PvP, or raid groups. The healing of these cooldowns will remain equal when healing 20 injured allies as they previously did and only take into account injured allies as contributing to their splash cap. This will be a slight reduction in effectiveness when healing more than 20 players, but this tradeoff has seemed reasonable to us as the availability and strength goes up as group sizes increase.
      • Healing Tide Totem healing increased by 400%.
      • Healing Tide Totem now decreases its healing beyond 5 targets.
  • WARLOCK
    • Hellcaller
      • Wither damage dealt over time reduced by 30%.
      • Wither application damage reduced by 80%.
    • Affliction
      • New Talent: Improved Haunt – Increases the damage of Haunt by 35% and reduces its cast time by 25%. Haunt now applies Shadow Embrace.
      • New Talent: Malign Omen – Casting Soul Rot grants 3 applications of Malign Omen. Your next Malefic Rapture deals 20% increased damage and extends the duration of your damage over time effects and Haunt by 2 seconds.
      • New Talent: Malefic Touch – Malefic Rapture deals an additional Shadowflame damage to each target it affects.
      • New Talent: Infirmity – The stack count of Agony is increased by 4 when applied by Vile Taint. Enemies damaged by Phantom Singularity take 10% increased damage from you for its duration.
      • Haunted Soul has been removed.
      • Haunt damage increased by 230%. This change does not affect PvP.
      • Cull the Weak has been moved to gate 2.
      • Summon Darkglare has been moved to gate 2.
      • Malevolent Visionary has been moved to gate 2.
      • Haunt has been moved to gate 2.
      • Shadow Embrace has been moved to gate 2.
      • Empowered Unstable Affliction has been moved to gate 3.
      • Relinquished has been moved to gate 3.
      • The following talents are now 1 point:
        • Empowered Unstable Affliction
      • The following talents are now 2 points:
        • Withering Bolt
    • Destruction
      • Reverse Entropy and Internal Combustion have been moved to gate 2.
      • Explosive Potential has been moved to gate 2.
      • Scalding Flames has been moved to gate 1.
      • Dimensional Rift has been moved to gate 2.
      • Dimension Ripper has been moved to gate 2.
      • Infernal has been moved to gate 3.
      • Crashing Chaos has been moved to gate 3.
      • Infernal Brand has been moved to gate 3.
      • Rain of Chaos has been moved to gate 3.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Flame Rift
        • Lessons of Space-Time
        • Unstable Rifts
  • WARRIOR
    • Second Wind gains an additional effect – While you are below 35% health, restores 1.0% health every 1 second. The amount restored increases the closer you are to death (max 2%).
    • Tier 1 talents slightly re-arranged.
    • Colossus
      • Boneshaker now increases the stun duration of Shockwave by 1 second (was 2 seconds) and slows the movement of all targets by 40% for 3 seconds after the stun fades.
      • Rally renamed to Veteran Vitality.
    • Slayer
      • Relentless Pursuit’s removal of movement impairing abilities can now occur only once every 30 seconds. The effect will not trigger unless you are currently affected by a movement impairing ability when you Charge.
      • A debuff was added to allow players to track the 30 second limit.
      • Vicious Agility charge now reduces the cooldown of Heroic Leap by 2 seconds (was 5 seconds).
      • Reap the Storm now has a 20% chance to trigger from Mortal Strike or Bloodthirst (was 2 RPPM on Overpower or Raging Blow).
      • Lethal Reflexes replaced with Fierce Followthrough – Mortal Strike/Bloodthirst critical strikes increase the damage of your next Mortal Strike/Bloodthirst by 15%.
    • Arms
      • Crushing Force now increases Mortal Strike damage by 5% and Mortal Strike critical strike damage by 5% per point (was Slam damage and critical strike chance).
      • Barbaric Training now also affects Cleave. Damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).
      • Seismic Reverberation now also triggers from Cleave.
      • Battlelord no longer increases Overpower damage, and now generates 10 Rage when it resets the cooldown of Mortal Strike.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • ARENAS
    • All arena maps now have levers players can click on to indicate they are ready for the game to start. Once all players have hit the lever, the arena start timer will skip to 10 seconds remaining.
  • REWARDS
    • Oppressive Orator’s Larynx damage reduced by 70% in PvP combat.
    • Empowering Crystal of Anub’ikkaj secondary stat granted reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Bursting Lightshard damage reduced by 60% in PvP combat.
    • Remnant of Darkness Strength granted reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Burin of the Candle King absorb reduced by 75% in PvP combat.
    • Carved Blazikon Wax Versatility reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Skarmorak Shard Mastery reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Synergistic Brewterializer damage reduced by 60% in PvP combat.
    • Ravenous Honey Buzzer damage reduced by 70% in PvP combat.
    • Cinderbrew Stein -absorb and stats reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Charged Stormrook Plume -damage reduced by 70% in PvP combat.
    • High Speaker’s Accretion damage reduced by 80% in PvP combat.
  • PROFESSIONS
    • Blacksmithing
      • Beledar’s Bulwark Versatility reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Sanctified Steps damage reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Jewelcrafting
      • Captured Starlight absorption effect reduced by 80% in PvP combat.
    • Leatherworking
      • Waders of the Unifying Flame secondary stat bonus reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Adrenal Surge Clasp Strength reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Fury of the Storm Rook (Leather set bonus) Haste reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Sanctified Torchbearer’s Grips damage reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Embrace of the Cinderbee (Mail Set bonus) secondary stat bonus reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • Tailoring
      • Woven Dawn Set (Set bonus) Mastery reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Woven Dusk Set (Set bonus) Haste reduced by 50% in PvP combat.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • The visual for meta quests has been updated.

The War Within Alpha Development Notes 21 May 2024

Quote from: Blizzard

We have the following changes and updates in today’s new build of The War Within Alpha:

CLASSES

  • The number of talent loadouts that can be saved on a per character basis to has been increased to 40 (was 10).
  • We are removing increased melee range talents across the game, such as Astral Influence and Acrobatic Strikes. Default melee range has increased since these talents were originally created, so they now allow specs to attack from well outside where it appears they should be able to. They make the melee experience inconsistent across classes in a way we’re not happy with, so we’re removing them.
    • ROGUE
      • Deathstalker (Assassination/Subtlety) Hero Talents are now available for testing.
        • The harbingers of death, Deathstalkers strike from the shadows to bring a swift end to their targets.
    • DEATH KNIGHT
      • New Talent: Unyielding Will – Anti-Magic Shell’s cooldown is increased by 20 seconds and it now also removes all harmful magic effects when activated. Now a capstone talent available after Rune Mastery and Subduing Grasp.
      • The class tree has had further adjustments in talent locations and pathing updates.
      • Osmosis healing received while Anti-Magic Shell is active is increased by 15%. Now a 1-point talent (was 2).
      • Runic Protection armor increased to 6% (was 3%). Now a 1-point talent (was 2).
      • Blood Draw cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
      • Blood Draw is no longer a capstone and is now available in Death’s Echo old location.
      • Icebound Fortitude is now the first available talent on the left of the tree replacing Mind Freeze.
      • Runic Attenuation is now available directly after Icebound Fortitude.
      • Death’s Echo now a capstone ability available after Will of the Necropolis and Subduing Grasp.
      • Subduing Grasp now reduces damage by 6% for 6 seconds when you pull an enemy (was 8% at rank 2). Now a 1-point talent (was 2).
      • Vestigial Shell no longer a choice node with Null Magic and is available in the right capstone space.
      • Null Magic no longer a choice node with Vestigial Shell and is available in the left capstone space.
      • Unholy
        • Sudden Doom now reduces the cost of your next Death Coil/Epidemic by 10 (was free).
          • Developers’ notes: With the update to Sudden Doom’s proc rate it further flooded Unholy with Runic Power and you weren’t able to spend the RP down fast enough in a lot of scenarios to prevent overcapping. This next iteration we are going to try a reduced cost Death Coil or Epidemic to help combat the problem of Runic Power overcapping. Internally we tested this as a full removal of the cost reduction but it left quite a bit of downtime in the rotation and felt particularly bad outside of cooldowns. A 10 Runic Power cost reduction felt reasonably well both inside and outside of cooldowns.
        • Sudden Doom now also causes your next Death Coil/Epidemic to burst a Festering Wound.
          • Developers’ notes: We are looking into ways to increase the frequency you apply Festering Wound with Festering Strike so we are exploring having a Runic Power spender burst a wound instead of only rune spenders or Apocalypse. Internally with testing we have found it creates a natural cadence in which you want to press Festering Strike instead of relying only on passive wound applicators. The other perk of Death Coil bursting a Festering Wound when consuming Sudden Doom is it helps ease the friction of what to press during your cooldowns.
        • Updated the spec tree with a few additional talent re-locations. Notable movements are:
          • Superstrain and Morbidity now located on the left side of the tree directly after Death Rot.
          • Unholy Assault and Festermight are now located in the middle of the tree after Army of the Dead.
          • Eternal Agony is now available after Dark Transformation.
      • Frost
        • Fixed an issue with Absolute Zero being available prior to the 3rd gate being unlocked.
    • DRUID
      • Balance
        • Orbital Strike has temporarily had its line-targeting reticle disabled.
      • Feral
        • Cat Form no longer increases the range of auto-attacks and melee abilities by 3 yards.
        • Omen of Clarity Clearcasting aura added to the personal resource bar.
        • Omen of Clarity Clearcasting aura no longer highlights the spell icons for Shred, Swipe, and Thrash.
    • EVOKER
      • Deep Breath, Landslide, and Breath of Eons temporarily have their line-targeting reticle disabled while we work on an issue with it causing a crash.
      • Lifecinders now upgrades Renewing Blaze to allow 1 friendly target. If no target is selected, it will find a nearby injured ally.
      • Chronowarden
        • Preservation
          • Instability Matrix reduces empower spell cooldown by up to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Flameshaper
        • Fan the Flames has been adjusted – Instead of extending Enkindle, it now adds 100% more damage or healing into the periodic effect. In addition, the tooltip now clarifies that it affects all active Enkindles.
        • Traveling Flame now extends Dream Breath or Fire Breath by 8 seconds, and causes it to spread to a nearby target (was causes it to spread, or refreshes if no valid targets were present).
        • Consume Flame now consumes 4 seconds of your Fire Breath or Dream Breath (was 8 seconds). Amount of healing or damage is now equal to 300% of that, and now scales with Haste.
      • Devastation
        • Developers’ notes: The goal of these changes is primarily to increase the viability of the left side of the Devastation tree. We hope this can allow Devastation to be more flexible in their talent choices and have options to build around Firestorm if they wish.
        • Firestorm radius increased to 10 yards (was 8).
        • Firestorm’s tick rate now increases with Haste.
        • New Talent: Scorching Embers – Enemies take 20% increased damage from your Red spells while affected by Fire Breath.
        • Feed the Flames has been redesigned – Now causes enemies to take 20% more damage from Pyre and Disintegrate if they are inside your Firestorm.
        • Snapfire has been slightly redesigned – Now grants a free cast of Firestorm that does not trigger the cooldown. It now also triggers from Pyre instead of Living Flame.
          • Developers’ notes: The free cast of Firestorm that does not trigger the cooldown is so the Snapfire proc will be full value even if Firestorm wasn’t on cooldown.
        • Imminent Destruction now also increases Disintegrate and Pyre damage by 10%, and lasts 12 seconds (was 10 seconds).
        • Imminent Destruction has swapped places with Feed the Flames in the talent tree.
        • Honed Aggression now increases Azure Strike and Living Flame damage by 10% per point (was 5%).
        • The following talents have been removed:
          • Everburning Flame
          • Raging Inferno
    • MAGE
      • Arcane
        • Energized Familiar now fires 4 bolts during Arcane Surge (was Time Warp or other similar effects).
        • Wizened Wit decreases Arcane Blast cast time by 5% (was 10%).
        • Mana Adept and Slipstream have swapped places.
        • Clearcasting’s chance to trigger is no longer tied to mana spent, and now has a 10% chance of triggering when casting any damaging spell.
        • You can no longer trigger Clearcasting by casting damaging spells while out of combat.
        • Evocation now grants one stack of Clearcasting.
        • Siphon Storm duration has been reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
        • Arcane Battery removed.
          • Developers’ notes: We appreciate everyone’s feedback on the frustration centered around Arcane Battery, and have opted to replace it with Arcane Debilitation. Arcane Debilitation is meant to meaningfully integrate with existing Arcane Missiles effects across the tree in an exciting way with minimal headspace requirements. We will be sensitive to any degenerate optimizations that need to be done to maximize this talent’s effectiveness.
        • New Talent: Arcane Debilitation – Damaging a target with Arcane Missiles applies Arcane Debilitation, increasing their damage taken from your Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, and Arcane Blast by 0.5%/1% for 6 seconds. New stacks do not refresh duration.
        • Time Loop has been redesigned – When you apply a stack of Arcane Debilitation, you have a 10% chance to apply another stack of Arcane Debilitation. This effect can trigger off of itself.
        • Aether Attunement has been redesigned – Consuming Clearcasting has a 15% chance to grant you Aether Attunement, causing your next Arcane Missiles to deal 150% increased damage to your primary target and fires at up to 4 nearby enemies dealing 100% increased damage.
        • Aether Attunement is now tracked on the personal resource display.
        • Arcane Debilitation is now tracked on enemy nameplates.
        • Leydrinker has been redesigned – Consuming Nether Precision has a 15% chance to make your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage echo, repeating its damage at 25% effectiveness to the primary target and up to four nearby enemies.
        • Leydrinker visuals have been updated.
        • New Talent: Surging Urge – Arcane Surge damage increased by 5% per Arcane Charge.
        • Nether Munitions damage amplification reduced to 6% (was 8%).
      • Fire
        • Alexstrasza’s Fury is no longer a choice node with From the Ashes
        • Quickflame’s Flamestrike damage bonus reduced to 20% (was 25%).
        • Charring Embers moved to Gate 2.
        • Charring Embers now increases the damage you deal to affected targets by 4% (was 6%).
        • From the Ashes has been redesigned – Your direct damage spells to targets affected by Charring Embers reduce the cooldown of Phoenix Flames by 1 second.
        • Deep Impact has been redesigned – Meteor now turns one target hit into a Living Bomb. Additionally, its cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds.
        • Phoenix Reborn no longer requires enemies to be under the effects of Charring Embers.
        • Inflame has returned and is now in Gate 3.
        • Focused Fury has been removed.
          • Developers’ notes: Convection and Focused Fury were intended to be flex talents to help you get a bit more single target damage while in an AOE build. However, the combination of these two talents were making Living Bomb so powerful in single target that it was overshadowing spells like Pyroblast. We don’t have a problem with Living Bomb being present in single target builds, but it shouldn’t be one of your highest damage contributors. Given the design of Focused Fury, it stands very opposed to this principle, and thus we opted to remove it.
        • Convection is now located where Focused Fury was.
        • Wildfire has been removed.
  • MONK
    • Conduit of the Celestials
      • Strength of the Ox now additionally refunds 2 stacks of Teachings of the Monastery after being consumed for Windwalker Monks.
      • Flight of the Red Crane now grants 1 stack of Mana Tea for Mistweaver Monk and 20% increased energy regeneration for Windwalker Monks for 6 seconds when activated.
      • Heart of the Jade Serpent now activates from Strike of the Windlord for Windwalker Monks (was Storm, Earth, and Fire).
        • Developers’ notes: Heart of the Jade Serpent’s activation rate would outpace Storm, Earth, and Fire’s recharge rate eventually leading to wasted procs.
      • Brewmaster
        • Removed Improved Celestial Brew. Functionality is now baseline for Brewmaster Monks.
        • Removed Improved Purifying Brew. Functionality is now baseline for Brewmaster Monks.
        • Elusive Footwork is now 1-point.
        • Positions adjusted for Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, Walk with the Ox, and Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox.
      • Mistweaver
        • New Talent: Pool of Mists – Renewing Mist now has 3 charges and reduces the remaining cooldown of Rising Sun Kick by 1 second. Rising Sun Kick now reduces the remaining cooldown of Renewing Mist by 1 second.
        • Teachings of the Monastery is now a baseline effect.
          • Known Issue: Swapping from Windwalker specialization with Teachings of the Monastery talented to Mistweaver disables Teachings of the Monastery. Relogging or swapping to Brewmaster temporarily resolves this while we work on a fix.
        • Refreshing Jade Wind has been redesigned – Thunder Focus Tea summons a whirling tornado around you, causing healing over 8 seconds to up to 5 allies within 10 yards.
        • Yu’lon’s Whisper has been redesigned – While channeling Mana Tea you exhale the breath of Yu’lon, healing up to 5 allies within 15 yards every 0.5 seconds.
        • Chi Harmony has been redesigned – Renewing Mist increases its target’s healing received from you by 50% for the first 8 seconds of its duration, but cannot jump to a new target during this time.
          • Developers’ notes: We’re making an adjustment to Chi Harmony to cut down on the amount of active auras on frames now that it’s here to stay as a talent. Renewing Mist will have a new icon indicating when its Chi Harmony healing increase is active and it will swap back to its original icon when Chi Harmony’s window ends. We’d love to hear feedback on this as we’d like the redesign to have as minimal impact as possible and mostly be focused on quality of life and long-term sustainability.
        • Crane Style has moved to Teachings of the Monastery’s previous location.
        • Misty Peaks now has a 4/8% chance to activate and now extends Enveloping Mist on targets if Enveloping Mist is present (previously would not proc).
      • Windwalker
        • New Talent: Jadefire Fists – At the end of your Fists of Fury channel, you release a Jadefire Stomp. This can occur once every 20 seconds. Shares a choice node with Jadefire Stomp.
          • Developers’ notes: This talent is not yet implemented into the Alpha, but we want your early feedback. Let us know what you think!
    • PALADIN
      • Crusader’s Reprieve has been removed.
      • Touch of Light has been moved to Crusader’s Reprieve’s position.
      • Incandescence now functions with Divine Hammer for Retribution.
    • PRIEST
      • Shadow
        • Shadow Crash now is a choice node with a new talent: Void Crash – Hurl a bolt of slow-moving Void energy at your target, dealing Shadow damage to all enemies within 8 yards.
        • Shadow Crash’s tooltip has been updated to specify that it is aimed at a location, to make it more clear the differences between each choice.
    • ROGUE
      • Fatebound
        • Deal Fate now specifies it generates exactly 1 combo point per use of any listed ability.
        • Deal Fate’s effect now includes Ambush for Assassination, and also for Outlaw while Hidden Opportunity is talented.
      • Assassination
        • Venom Rush removed.
        • New Talent: Sanguine Stratagem – Gain 1 additional max combo point. Your finishing moves that consume 5 or more combo points have increased effects, and your finishing moves deal 5% increased damage.
      • Outlaw
        • Blade Flurry radius increased to 8 yards (was melee range).
    • WARLOCK
      • Demonology
        • The size of Gloomhound and Charhound has been decreased by 20%.
      • Destruction
        • The cooldown of Summon Infernal is now 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
        • Decimation has been redesigned – Your critical strikes have a chance to reset the cooldown of Soul Fire and reduce the cast time of your next Soul Fire by 80%.
        • Scalding Flames has been redesigned – Increases the damage of Immolate by 25% and its duration by 3 seconds.
        • New Talent: Indiscriminate Flames – Backdraft increases the damage of your next Chaos Bolt by 5% or increases the critical strike chance of your next Incinerate or Soul Fire by 35%.
        • New Talent: Blistering Atrophy – Increases the damage of Shadowburn by 20%. Shadowburn always critically strikes a target that is at or below 30% health.
        • New Talent: Fiendish Cruelty – When Shadowburn fails to kill a target that is at or below 30% health, its cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
        • New Talent: Demonfire Mastery – Increases the damage of Channel Demonfire by 30% and it deals damage 35% faster.
        • New Talent: Improved Chaos Bolt – Increases the damage of Chaos Bolt by 10% and reduces its cast time by 0.5 seconds.
        • New Talent: Avatar of Destruction – Consuming Ritual of Ruin summons an Overfiend for 8 seconds. Overfiend generates 1 Soul Shard Fragment every 0.5 seconds and casts Chaos Bolt at its summoner’s target, dealing Chaos damage.
        • New Talent: Dimension Ripper [Not Yet Implemented] – Incinerate has a chance to create a Dimensional Rift or recharge Dimensional Rift if learned.
        • New Talent: Flame Rift [Not Yet Implemented] – Dimensional Rift can now summon a powerful Flame Rift.
        • New Talent: Lessons of Space-Time [Not Yet Implemented] – While you have a Dimensional Rift open, all of your damage is increased by 5%.
        • New Talent: Unstable Rifts [Not Yet Implemented] – Bolts from Dimensional Rift deal 25% of the damage dealt to nearby enemies.
        • Backlash moved to gate 1.
        • Summon Infernal moved to gate 2.
        • Channel Demonfire moved to gate 2.
        • Raging Demonfire moved to gate 3.
        • Soul Fire moved to gate 3.
        • Decimation moved to gate 3.
        • Devastation moved to gate 3.
        • Ruin moved to gate 3.
        • The following talents have been removed:
          • Pandemonium
          • Cry Havoc
          • Improved Immolate
          • Decimating Bolt
          • Grand Warlock’s Design
        • The following talents are now 1 rank:
          • Burn to Ashes
          • Master Ritualist
          • Power Overwhelming
          • Infernal Brand
          • Crashing Chaos
          • Ashen Remains
          • Eradication
          • Conflagration of Chaos
          • Ruin
          • Scalding Flames
          • Fire and Brimstone
          • Rolling Havoc
          • Raging Demonfire
          • Flashpoint
          • Emberstorm
  • USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY
    • Most world map icons can now be supertracked by left-clicking. Some examples include: events, rares, rare elites, bonus objectives, flightmasters, dungeon/raid entrances, and more.
    • Upon learning Dynamic Flight, the Dynamic Flight talent tree is now accessible via a button within the Mount Journal.

Warcraft Short Story: “The Calling”

Quote from: Blizzard

Since leaving the realms of Death, Anduin Wrynn has only sought to keep his hands busy. Plagued by night terrors and grisly flashbacks, the young king finally finds the isolation he seeks in Stormsong Valley, milling flour for a local village. But while Anduin may be able to hide his identity, he cannot escape who he is or the stuff he is made from.

Wind caressed the newcomer’s bearded face as he permitted his eyes, so hungry for green openness and soft lands, to feast.

Stormsong Valley was the ancient home of the tidesages, mages whose mastery of water and wind had protected ships and sailors for generations. Yet the beauty of this little hamlet near the sparkling sea was not that of majestic monuments to powerful magic. Here, it was obvious one was in the breadbox of Kul Tiras, where a salt-spray wind whispered over barley and wheat and the only magic was that of water and windmills, creaking from morn till night, transmuting elements to energy in service of the feeding and care of ordinary folk.

The pleasant sound of the mills sang a promise of new beginnings.

And the crash of the waves below, near the cave where his belongings lay bundled and buried, spoke of an ending.

Anduin Wrynn’s recent wandering had not taken him to peaceful places. He understood that he was trying to scour himself, to purge his mind and soul, to burn away his sins in places where the landscape reflected his own suffering.

My friends . . . the ones I almost killed. They believe my hands are clean. But they don’t feel clean.

Years after that confession, they still didn’t.

Read and download this short story by Christie Golden.

Read Now

The War Within Alpha Development Notes 14 May 2024

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello everyone! Here are the changes that you can find in this week’s update to The War Within Alpha:

NEW ALLIED RACE

  • Earthen and their introductory questline are now available to test.

CLASSES

  • The following Hero Talents are available for playtesting in Public Alpha 5:
    • SHAMAN
      • Totemic (Enhancement/Restoration)
        • Totemics excel at unlocking the full power of their totems, strengthening their totems and gaining access to new ones. They have honed their imbuement skills to further improve their combat capabilities.
  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Frost
      • New Talent: Shattered Frost – When Frost Strike consumes 5 Razorice stacks, it deals 50% of the damage deal to nearby enemies. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. Available as a capstone talent after Shattering Blade.
      • New Talent: Cryogenic Chamber – Each time Frost Fever deals damage, 15% of the damage dealt is gathered into the next cast of Remorseless Winter, up to 20 times.
      • New Talent: Arctic Assault – Consuming Killing Machine fires a Glacial Advance through your target. Available as a new capstone directly after Obliteration.
      • New Talent: Smothering Offense – Your auto attack damage is increased by 5%. This amount is increased per stack of Icy Talons you have and can stack up to 2 additional times.
      • New Talent: Icy Death Torrent – Your auto attack critical strikes have a chance to send out a sleet of ice dealing Frost damage to enemies in front of you.
      • New Talent: The Long Winter – While Pillar of Frost is active, your auto-attack critical strikes increase its duration by 1 second, up to a maximum of 5 seconds.
      • Frostscythe has been redesigned – A sweeping attack that strikes all enemies in front of you for Frost damage. This attack always critically strikes and critical strikes with Frostscythe deal 4 times normal damage. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets. Consuming Killing Machine reduces the cooldown of Frostscythe by 1 second. Now has a 30 second cooldown and Rune cost increased to 2 (was 1).
      • Rime is now a baseline ability learned at level 21.
      • Breath of Sindragosa damage increased by 25%.
      • Chill Streak can now bounce off the Death Knight if a second enemy target isn’t found.
      • Enduring Strength is now a 1-point talent. Strength increased to 20% (was 10%).
      • Frostwhelp’s Aid is now a 1-point talent. Now grants 8% Mastery per target hit (was 4%).
      • Killing Machine now stacks 1 additional time.
      • Everfrost is now learned in gate 1 directly after Howling Blast.
      • Frostwyrm’s Fury position moved to gate 2 and located directly after Icecap, Frostwhelp’s Aid, and Enduring Strength.
      • Absolute Zero shifted up to gate 3 unlock positioned directly behind Frostwyrm’s Fury.
      • Shattering Blade is now available after Avalanche.
      • Rune of Razorice now displays the debuff on the enemy nameplate.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Fatal Fixation
        • Cold Blooded-Rage
        • Invigorating Freeze
      • Horn of Winter is now positioned in Fatal Fixations old location.
      • Empower Rune Weapon is now located in Horn of Winter’s old location.
      • Obliteration has replaced Cold-Blooded Rage.
  • DRUID
    • Druid of the Claw
      • Bestial Strength increases Primal Wrath’s direct damage by 50% (was 100%).
      • Dreadful Wound bleed damage increased by 25%.
    • Keeper of the Grove
      • Dream Surge’s Dream Burst damage reduced by 15%.
      • Harmony of the Grove’s Force of Nature treants spell damage increased by 5% (was 3%).
      • Power of Nature now increases Force of Nature treant melee damage by 100% (was 20%).
      • Bounteous Bloom now causes each treant to generate 6 Astral Power every 2 seconds (was 3 Astral Power).
      • Early Spring now reduces the cooldown of Force of Nature by 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Cenarius’ Might has been updated – Entering Eclipse (Balance)/Casting Swiftmend (Restoration) increases your Haste by 8% for 6 seconds.
      • Power of the Dream no longer affects Cenarius’ Might.
      • Control of the Dream’s maximum effect increased to 15 seconds (was 5 seconds).
      • Grove’s Inspiration’s Wrath and Starfire damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 12%).
      • Persistent Enchantments has been replaced by Potent Enchantments – Balance: Orbital Strike applies Stellar Flare for 8 additional seconds and deals 30% increased damage. Greater Alignment increases the duration of Celestial Alignment by an additional 20% and increases Eclipse damage during Celestial Alignment by an additional 5%. Restoration: Reforestation grants Tree of Life for 2 additional seconds.
    • Wildstalker
      • Symbiotic Blooms now prioritize growing on injured targets.
      • Strategic Infusion’s chance for your periodic heals to crit is decreased to 8% (was 10%), but its duration is increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Wildstalker’s Power has been updated – Rip and Ferocious Bite damage increased by 5%. Rejuvenation, Efflorescence, and Lifebloom healing increased by 10%.
      • New Talent replacing Wildstalker’s Persistence: Lethal Preservation – When you remove an effect with Soothe or Remove Corruption/Nature’s Cure, gain a combo point and heal for 4% of your maximum health. If you are at full health an injured party or raid member will be healed instead.
      • Root Network now increases the healing of all your abilities, not just Lifebloom and Wild Growth.
      • Implant has been updated – When you gain or lose Tiger’s Fury, your next single-target melee ability causes a Bloodseeker Vine to grow on the target for 4 seconds. Swiftmend causes a Symbiotic Bloom to grow on the target for 4 seconds.
      • Twin Sprouts’ chance to grow new vines increased to 20% (was 10%).
      • Resilient Flourishing can now cause Bloodseeker Thorns to spread to any nearby valid target, preferring ones currently unaffected by Bloodseeker Thorns.
      • Bursting Growth has been updated – When Bloodseeker Thorns expire or you use Ferocious Bite on their target they explode in thorns, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies. Damage reduced above 5 targets. When Symbiotic Blooms expire or you cast Rejuvenation on their target flowers grow around their target, healing them and up to 3 nearby allies.
      • Entangling Vortex now immobilizes affected units for 3 seconds.
    • Feral
      • New Talent: Resourceful Hunter – Leech increased by 2%. Versatility increased by 2%.
      • Rampant Ferocity restored, replacing Resourceful Hunter – Ferocious Bite also deals damage per combo point spent to all nearby enemies affect by your Rip. Damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
      • Rampant Ferocity damage relative to Ferocious Bite increased by 20%.
      • Tear Open Wounds has been removed.
  • EVOKER
    • Devastation
      • Animosity can no longer extend Dragonrage beyond 16 seconds.
    • Preservation
      • Time of Need now triggers at 30% health (was 20%). Passive now displays in spellbook, and the cooldown can now be tracked on the passive.
      • Reversion’s tooltip has been updated to include Golden Hour’s effect, if the talent is learned – Reverse an ally’s injuries, instantly healing them for 15% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds and an additional amount of healing over 12 seconds.
  • MAGE
    • New Talent: Barrier Diffusion – Whenever one of your Barriers is removed, reduce its cooldown by 4 seconds. Located in Dragon’s Breath previous location.
    • Dragon’s Breath is now located in gate 2.
    • Supernova added to Mage class tree. Choice node with Dragon’s Breath.
    • Supernova now has a 45 second cooldown (was 25 seconds).
    • Ice Nova is now a choice node with Ring of Frost.
    • Mass Slow has been removed.
    • Sunfury
      • Arcane Phoenix visuals have been updated, targeting behaviors have been adjusted to prioritize who you are attacking and has had several spellbook updates: No longer casts Meteor as an exceptional spell, now casts Meteorite and Meteorite Barrage as an exceptional spell.
      • Lessons in Debilitation no longer replaces the first exceptional spell the Phoenix casts with Supernova or Gravity Lapse and now casts Supernova or Gravity Lapse alongside the Phoenix’s first spell cast. Additionally, the Arcane Phoenix now Spellsteals once when it is summoned and once when it expires (used to be once per second). Phoenix Spellsteal will only target units with stealable buffs.
      • Invocation: Arcane Phoenix’s Spellfire Sphere consumption effect moved to Codex of the Sunstriders.
      • Over your Phoenix’s duration, it will consume each of your Spellfire Spheres to cast an exceptional spell.
    • Arcane
      • Arcane Battery’s spell damage buff now stacks up to 4 times (was 5). Spell damage buff duration is now 30 seconds (was 25 seconds).
      • Leydrinker now triggers after consuming Nether Precision 5 times (was 6).
      • Cracking Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles are now a 1-point talent.
      • Reverberate has returned and is now in gate 2.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Supernova
        • Rule of Threes
    • Fire
      • Pyromaniac is now implemented.
      • Fevered Incantation now grants 1% increased critical strike damage per point (was 2%).
      • Lit Fuse chance to trigger increased to 10% (was 5%).
      • Explosive Ingenuity increases Lit Fuse trigger chance to 20% (was 10%).
      • Explosivo now increases Lit Fuse trigger chance to 40% while Combustion is active (was 30%).
      • Convection now has a connection to Explosivo.
      • Majesty of the Phoenix is now in gate 1.
      • Firestarter’s position has changed.
      • Surging Blaze removed.
    • Frost
      • Ice Barrier’s absorb increased to 24% of maximum health (was 22%).
  • MONK
    • Vivacious Vivification now additionally increases the healing of your next Vivify.
    • Mistweaver
      • Revival now dispels up to 3 magical debuffs off of each target (was uncapped).
        • Developer’s note: This change is mainly targeted at Battlegrounds, where Revival has been overly oppressive to other specializations that rely on magic debuffs to function. We are not expecting this to impact PvE. This will not change how Revival functions with debuffs that stack multiple times, such as bursting.
    • Windwalker
      • Fury of Xuen now increases Haste, Mastery, and Critical Strike chance by 3% (was Critical Strike chance by 5%).
  • PALADIN
    • Lightsmith
      • Valiance no longer increases the duration of active Armaments, cooldown reduction unchanged.
      • Solidarity’s tooltip updated to reflecting targeting change.
      • Blessing of the Forge has had targeting improvements and visual effects updates.
    • Retribution
      • Radiant Glory has been updated – Wake of Ashes activates Avenging Wrath/Crusade for 10/12 seconds, Each Holy Power spent has a chance to activate Avenging Wrath/Crusade for 5/6 seconds.
      • Radiant Glory now extends the duration of an active Avenging Wrath/Crusade if it triggers while Avenging Wrath/Crusade is active.
    • Protection
      • Bastion of Light has been redesigned – Your next 5 casts of Judgment generate 2 additional Holy Power.
      • Sanctuary has been redesigned – Consecration’s benefit persists for 4 seconds after you leave it.
      • Light of the Titans is now a 1-point talent. Healing over time is now a % of original value, rather than attack power based.
      • Bulwark of Order is now a 1-point talent.
      • Separated Focused Enmity and Soaring Shield are now a choice node.
      • Light of the Titans and Tirion’s Devotion are now a choice node.
      • Crusader’s Resolve has been redesigned – Targets struck by Avenger’s shield deal 10% reduced melee damage to you for 10 seconds.
      • Strength in Adversity now grants 5% Parry per target (was 2%).
  • PRIEST
    • Voidweaver
      • Developer’s note: The goal of these changes is to make Collapsing Void work better with Discipline Priest’s Atonement ramp, as well as to make Collapsing Void more relevant for encounters with lower health enemies. For Discipline Priests who want to better fit Collapsing Void into their Atonement window, they can choose Void Empowerment to help with that. In addition, Devour Matter felt like an odd choice against Void Empowerment, so now it is a node that you are guaranteed to have.
      • Entropic Rift duration reduced to 8 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Void Torrent now immediately summons Entropic Rift and pauses its duration until the channel is complete or interrupted.
      • Darkening Horizon extension for Entropic Rift capped at 3 seconds (was 5 seconds).
      • Void Empowerment redesigned for Discipline – Now extends your shortest 5 Atonements by 1 seconds (was 80% increase to your next Power Word: Shield).
      • Void Empowerment is now a choice node with Darkening Horizon instead of Devour Matter.
      • Shadow
        • Entropic Rift is now summoned by Shadow Crash instead of Void Torrent.
        • Inner Quietus has been redesigned – Shadow Crash deals 400% additional damage to its primary target (was Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain damage increased by 20%).
    • Shadow
      • Shadow Crash now centers on your target, rather than using a reticle to target a position on the ground.
  • SHAMAN
    • Farseer
      • Restoration
        • In addition to increasing maximum mana, Primordial Capacity now also increases the max stacks of Tidal Waves to 4.
  • WARLOCK
    • Diabolist
      • Abyssal Dominion has been redesigned:
        • Demonology – Summon Demonic Tyrant becomes empowered, dealing 70% increased damage and increasing the damage of your demons by 20% while active.
        • Destruction – Summon Infernal becomes empowered, dealing 40% increased damage. When your Summon Infernal ends, it fragments into two smaller Infernals at 50% effectiveness that last 10 seconds.
    • Demonology
      • The cooldown of Summon Vilefiend has been reduced to 30 seconds (was 45 seconds).
      • The cooldown of Summon Demonic Tyrant has been reduced to 1 minute (was 1 minute and 30 seconds).
      • Fel Invocation has been redesigned – Soul Strike deals 20% increased damage and generates a Soul Shard.
      • Pact of the Ered’ruin has been redesigned – When Doom expires, you summon a Doomguard that casts 5 Doom Bolts before departing. Each Doom Bolt deals Shadow damage.
      • Ferocity of F’harg has been renamed to Flametouched and has been redesigned – Increases the attack speed of your Dreadstalkers by 20% and their critical strike chance by 15%.
      • Mark of Shatug has been redesigned – Your Summon Vilefiend becomes Summon Gloomhound and learns the following ability:
        • Gloom Slash – Tooth and claw are drenched in malignant shadow magic, causing the Gloomhound’s melee attacks to deal Shadow damage over 6 seconds. If this effect is reapplied, any remaining damage will be added to the new Gloom Slash.
      • New Talent: Mark of F’harg – Your Summon Vilefiend becomes Summon Charhound and learns the following ability:
        • Infernal Presence – Cloaked in the ever-burning flames of the abyss, dealing Fire damage to enemies within 10 yards every 1 second.
      • New Talent: Shadowtouched – Wicked Maw causes the target to take 20% additional Shadow damage from your demons.
      • New Talent: Foul Mouth – Increases Vilefiend damage by 20% and your Vilefiend’s Bile Spit now applies Wicked Maw.
      • New Talent: The Houndmaster’s Gambit – Your Dreadstalkers deal 50% increased damage while your Vilefiend is active.
      • New Talent: Blood Invocation – The cooldown of Power Siphon is reduced by 5 seconds and Power Siphon increases the damage of Demonbolt by an additional 20%.
      • New Talent: Fiendish Oblation – Damage dealt by Grimoire: Felguard is increased by an additional 10% and you gain a Demonic Core when Grimoire: Felguard ends.
      • New Talent: Doom Eternal – Demonic Cores reduce the duration of Doom by an additional 2 seconds and when Doom is removed its cooldown is reset.
      • New Talent: Impending Doom – Increases the damage of Doom by 20% and Doom generates 1 Soul Shard upon expiration.
      • Implosion, Imp Gang Boss, and Inner Demons have moved to gate 1.
      • Summon Demonic Tyrant, Reign of Tyranny, The Expendables, and Annihilan Training have moved to gate 2.
      • Summon Vilefiend, Dread Calling, Improved Demonic Tactics, and Demonic Brutality have moved to gate 3.
      • The following talents are now 1 point:
        • Imp Gang Boss
        • Umbral Blaze
        • Pact of the Imp Mother
        • Dread Calling
        • Demonic Brutality
        • Flametouched
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Fiendish Prowess
        • Shadow’s Bite
        • Infernal Command
        • Fel and Steel
        • Shadowcaster
        • Malefic Impact
        • Cavitation
        • Grand Warlock’s Design
  • WARRIOR
    • Colossus
      • Practiced Strikes now also affects Cleave and Revenge.
      • Rally has been redesigned – When your health is brought below 35%, you gain a Second Wind, healing you for 12% of your max health over 2 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 60 seconds.
      • Dominance of the Colossus damage taken debuff reduced to max of 5% (was 10%).
      • Mountain of Muscle and Scars damage taken reduced by 2.5% (was 5%).
    • Slayer
      • Slayer’s Reflexes renamed to Lethal Reflexes – Now resets the cooldown on Raging Blow for Fury (was Bloodthirst).
      • Constant Pressure replaced with Opportunist – When Tactician resets Overpower’s cooldown or Raging Blow resets its own cooldown, your next Overpower or Raging Blow deals 10% more damage and 10% more critical damage.
      • Slayer’s Focus renamed to Slayer’s Malice – Now affects Raging Blow for Fury (was Bloodthirst).
      • Tunnel Vision replaced with Culling Cyclone – Each strike of Bladestorm deals an additional 20% damage evenly split across all targets.
      • Thrill of the Kill replaced with Brutal Finish – Your next Mortal Strike or Rampage after Bladestorm ends deals 50% additional damage.
      • Frenetic Flurry renamed and slightly redesigned to Reap the Storm – Overpower and Raging Blow have a chance to cause you to unleash a flurry of steel, damaging all nearby enemies and applying Overwhelmed. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
      • Unrelenting Onslaught now allows you to use Pummel and Storm Bolt while Bladestorming.
      • Death Drive’s healing decreased to 15% of damage dealt by Sudden Death (was 50%).
      • Slay renamed to Show No Mercy.
      • The Culling Cyclone/Brutal Finish and Lethal Reflexes/Opportunist choice nodes have swapped positions.
    • Mountain Thane
      • Lightning Strikes’ chance for a lightning strike increased to 30% (was 25%). Lightning Strikes occur 30% more often during Avatar (was 50%).
      • Strength of the Mountain has been updated – Shield Slam damage increased by 10% (was 20%) and now causes Demoralizing Shout to reduce damage enemies deal to Protection Warriors by an additional 5%.
      • New Talent replacing Valarjar Training: Snap Induction – Activating Protection: Demoralizing Shout/Fury: Recklessness grants a charge of Thunder Blast.
      • Flashing Skies has been updated – Thunder Blast calls down a Lightning Strike on an enemy it hits.
      • Steadfast as the Peaks has been updated – Stamina increased by 5%. Victory Rush increases your maximum health by 10% for 5 seconds. When this health increase expires, you heal for any amount of the original Victory Rush that healed you in excess of your full health.
      • Keep Your Feet on the ground now additionally increases your Armor by 8%.
      • Thunder Blasts now generate 10 Rage for Protection and Fury (was 5).
      • Thunder Blasts deal 20% increased damage for Protection Warriors.
      • Burst of Power’s chance to trigger from Lightning Strikes reduced to 15% (was 20%).
      • Burst of Power now causes affected Bloodthirsts to deal 25% increased damage and generate 2 additional Rage for Fury Warriors.
      • Steadfast as the Peaks/Keep Your Feet on the Ground choice node position swapped with Flashing Skies/Snap Induction.
    • Protection
      • Battle-Scarred Veteran has been updated – When a damage event reduces your health below 30%, the portion of that damage event that would apply to the last 30% of your health is also reduced by 80%.
        • Developer’s note: For example, if you are at 50% health and receive damage for 40% of your health, your damage taken will be 20% + 20% * (1-0.8), or 24%, and you will have 26% health remaining when Battle-Scarred Veteran activates.” Additionally, this change will be deployed to the 10.2.7 environment over the next few days.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • MONK
    • New PvP Talent: Absolute Serenity – Celestial Conduit now prevents incapacitate, disorient, snare, and root effects for its duration.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • On the Rated PvP screen, the button tooltips now include information about your current rank in the specialization leaderboard.
  • Search functionality has been added to the Spellbook. Search results will be categorized under one of the following to provide further context:
    • Exact Matches: Exact full name matches the search text
    • Related Matches: Spells mentioned in the Exact Match’s description
    • Name Matches: Spells whose name partially matches the search text
    • Description Matches: Spells whose description partially matches the search text
  • Checkbox added to hide passives from displaying in the Spellbook.

The War Within Alpha Development Notes 9 May 2024

Quote from: Blizzard

Here is this week’s update to The War Within Alpha:

NEW ZONES AND DELVES

  • Azj-Kahet

NEW DUNGEONS

  • City of Threads
  • Ara-Kara, City of Echoes

NEW BATTLEGROUND: DEEPHAUL RAVINE

  • Deephaul Ravine is themed in The Ringing Deeps where the Foreman Uzjax and Architect Ruffious are tasked with collecting as much valuable ore, gems, and crystals for their respective priorities. Ruffious the Unbound Earthen has big plans for the ore and gems found in the Deephaul Ravine, but the Machine Speakers of the Earthenworks are quite possessive of such precious materials. Uzjax and his team plan to secure these materials before Ruffious and his band of misfits get their hands on it.
    • Mechanics
      • 8v8 and 10v10 Battleground that will be available in all battleground modes.
      • Hybrid map in which teams earn points by controlling either of the two active mine carts that move along the tracks on the map, or capturing a lucrative gem (the Deephaul Crystal) that is located in the middle of the map.
      • The Deephaul Crystal can be returned at either capture point located on the high ground on the opposing sides of the map.
      • Additionally, there’s a mine cart track that runs above the battleground playspace where players can hop in a cart vehicle to quickly traverse the map, allowing for quick engagements and repositioning.
  • How to playtest: open the Group Finder (default hotkey: i), then select Random Battleground and click Join Battle! Only the Deephaul Ravine map will be available as a Random Battleground map for Alpha.

WARBANDS

  • Roughly 2000 achievements from Dragonflight and earlier have been switched from character specific to account wide in order to allow your entire Warband to make progress on them. Please note, based on the quirks of implementation, any incomplete achievements that were converted will lose all progress on alpha with this change. In the live game, these achievements will go through a conversion process which will either merge progress across all characters in your Warband together, or take the furthest progress from each character in cases where merging wouldn’t make sense (e.g. Working the Isles: Obtain 100 skill points in a “Legion” category of two primary professions” ).
    • Developer’s note: Your thoughts and feedback about specific achievement changes is appreciated. Please note that this feature is still in development and there may be some adjustments in which final achievements become account wide before launch!

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

  • Level 78 Character Template
  • Maximum Level: 80
  • Earthen characters have been temporarily disabled.

CLASSES

  • The following Hero Talents are available for playtesting in Public Alpha 4:
    • SHAMAN
      • Stormbringer (Elemental/Enhancement)
        • Stormbringer Shaman are all about harnessing the storms, increasing the power of their lightning spells and gaining access to a new lightning ability, Tempest.
  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • New Talent: Subduing Grasp – When you pull an enemy the damage they deal to you is reduced by 4% for 6 seconds. Located at Rune Mastery’s previous location.
    • New Talent: Osmosis – Anti-Magic Shell increases healing received by 15/25%. Located at Unholy Bonds previous location.
    • New Talent: Null Magic – Magic Damage taken is reduced by 15% and the duration of harmful Magic effects against you are reduced by 35%. New capstone choice node with Vestigial Shell replacing Soul Reaper.
    • New Talent: Vestigial Shell – Casting Anti-Magic Shell grants 2 nearby allies a Lesser Anti-Magic Shell that absorbs magic damage and reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects against them by 50%. New capstone choice node with Null Magic replacing Soul Reaper.
    • New Talent: Ice Prison – Chains of Ice now also roots enemies for 4 seconds but its cooldown is increased to 12 seconds. Available in gate 1 after Blinding Sleet.
    • New Talent: Rune Protection – Your chance to be critically struck is reduced by 3% and your Armor is increased by 3/6%. Replaces Icy Talons old position within the tree.
    • Chains of Ice is now granted baseline and learned at level 13.
    • Anti-Magic Shell is now granted baseline and learned at level 14.
    • Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle can now be Runeforged on 1-handed weapons.
    • Rune of Hysteria has been removed.
      • Developer’s note: Rune of Hysteria was a problematic design especially as it pertains to Breath of Sindragosa and the volatility of its uptime. We felt that for the overall health of the spec it would be best to remove Hysteria at this time to better enable us to meet our goals with the upcoming changes to Breath.
    • Empower Rune Weapon has been removed.
      • Developer’s note: This will still be available for Frost in their spec tree but both Blood and Unholy were often flooded with resources and a big unnecessary contributor to this was Empower Rune Weapon. To better dial in resources on Blood and Unholy we feel its best to keep Empower Rune Weapon for Frost only.
    • Abomination Limb no longer grants Bone Shield, Runic Corruption, or Rime based on specialization.
      • Developer’s note: In Shadowlands it was important for the spec hooks to exist to better balance between the other covenant ability choices. With its re-introduction in Dragonflight its added to the influx of resources/procs that can often come at inopportune times or add to the feeling of being unable to spend down the bonuses it grants. By removing this it allows the ability to “breathe” on its own and lean into its strength of AoE control and damage.
    • Rune of the Apocalypse has been updated:
      • War Effect
        • Damage taken increased to 4% (was 1%).
        • Duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Pestilence Effect
        • Damage increased by 500%.
      • Famine Effect
        • Damage dealt to the caster reduced to 5% (was 2%).
      • Death Effect
        • Healing reduction increased to 5% (was 1%).
    • Cleaving Strikes now also retains bonus effects for being within your Death and Decay for 4 seconds when leaving its area.
    • Icebound Fortitude cooldown reduced by 60 seconds.
    • Veteran of the Third War now grants 20% Stamina (was 10%). Now a 1-rank talent (was 2).
    • Icy Talons Now increases attack speed per stack by 6% (was 3%). Now a 1-rank talent (was 2).
    • Unholy Bond now increases effectiveness of Runeforge effects by 20% (was 10%). Now a 1-rank talent (was 2).
    • Assimilation now reduces the cooldown of Anti-Magic Zone by 30 seconds. No longer increase Runic Power when absorbing damage.
    • Suppression now grants an additional 6% damage reduction to area of effects when you suffer a loss of control effect. Moved to gate 3.
    • Blood Scent Leech increased to 5%. Moved to gate 3.
    • Blood Draw now also grants a buff reducing damage taken by 10% and reducing Death Strike cost by 10 for 8 seconds when falling below 30% health. Now a 1-rank talent. Moved to the left capstone position.
    • Unholy Ground moved to gate 1 available after Cleaving Strikes.
    • Sacrificial Pact is now a choice node with Enfeeble.
    • Runic Attenuation moved to gate 1 available after Coldthirst.
    • Soul Reaper moved to gate 2 available after Unholy Blond or Death’s Reach
    • The following talents have been removed:
      • Might of Thassarian
      • Merciless Strikes
      • Clenching Grasp
    • Unholy
      • New Talent: Doomed Bidding – Consuming Sudden Doom calls upon a Magus of the Dead to assist you for 8 seconds. Now a choice node with Summon Gargoyle.
        • Ghoulish Frenzy is now available in the 2nd gate replacing Unholy Command.
      • New Talent: Raise Abomination – Summons an Abomination to attack nearby enemies applying Festering Wound with its melee attacks and infecting all nearby enemies with Virulent Plague. 90 second cooldown. Replaces Army of the Dead.
      • New Talent: Foul Infections – Your diseases deal 10% more damage and have a 5% increased chance to critically strike.
      • New Talent: Menacing Magus – Your Magus of the Dead Shadow Bolt now fires a volley of Shadow Bolts at up to 4 nearby enemies.
      • Epidemic is now granted baseline and learned at level 18.
      • Outbreak is now granted baseline and learned at level 13.
      • Sudden Doom is now learned in gate 1 directly after Scourge Strike and also causes your next Death Coil or Epidemic to critically strike
        • Sudden Doom is no longer an RPPM proc and has instead been updated to have a 25% chance on auto-attacks to proc with build in bad luck protection to provide a more consistent proc.
      • Army of the Dead cooldown reduced to 3 minutes (was 8 minutes).
      • Apocalypse cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 90 seconds).
      • Dark Transformation cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
      • Vile Contagion cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 90 seconds).
      • Festermight now functions like Ironfur, allowing multiple instances to overlap.
      • Ruptured Viscera is no longer a choice node with Magus of the Dead.
      • Ebon Fever is no longer a choice node with Bursting Sores and is available directly after Bursting Sores. Updated to also affect Frost Fever and Blood Plague if Superstrain is talented.
      • Unholy Blight moved to gate 1.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Replenishing Wounds
        • Army of the Damned
        • Unholy Command
        • Feasting Strike
  • DEMON HUNTER
    • Fel-Scarred
      • Fixed several issues with Burning Blades and Demonsurge not interacting with other talents.
      • Demonic Intensity tooltip updated – Activating Metamorphosis greatly empowers Eye Beam/Fel Devastation, Immolation Aura, and Sigil of Flame. Demonsurge damage is increased by 10% for each time it previously triggered while your demon form is active.
      • Fixed an issue that prevented Souls Sunder, Spirit Burst, and Sigil of Doom periodic damage from being correctly empowered.
      • Consuming Fire now correctly functions with all other Immolation Aura talents.
      • Havoc
        • Violent Transformation now also resets the cooldown of Immolation Aura in addition to its current effect.
  • EVOKER
    • Time Spiral is now a choice node with Spatial Paradox for all 3 Evoker specializations, available in the class tree.
    • Spatial Paradox cooldown increased to 3 minutes (was 2 minutes).
    • Augmentation
      • New Talent: Arcane Reach – The range of your helpful magics is increased by 5 yards. Located in Spatial Paradox’s previous location.
    • Preservation
      • Temporal Compression reduces the cast time of Empower spells by 10% per stack (was 5%).
  • MAGE
    • Sunfury
      • Arcane Soul no longer claims to reduce Arcane Barrage’s mana cost.
      • Glorious Incandescence now procs when casting Fire Blast instead of Phoenix Flames.
    • Fire
      • Lit Fuse is now applied by Fire Blast instead of Phoenix Flames.
      • Living Bomb applications are slightly desynced to minimize overlapping.
      • Living Bomb damage increased by 100%. Damage not increased in PvP combat.
      • Kindling now benefits from Flamestrike – Flamestrike critical strikes reduce the remaining cooldown of Combustion by 0.2 seconds for each critical strike, up to 1 second.
      • Unleashed Inferno’s non-Flamestrike damage bonus increased to 60%. Flamestrike damage bonus increased to 35%.
  • MONK
    • Brewmaster
      • New Talent: Elixir of Determination – When you fall below 40% health, gain an absorb for 100% of recently Purified damage, or a minimum of 20% of your maximum health. Cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds.
      • New Talent: Strike At Dawn – Rising Sun Kick grants a stack of Elusive Brawler.
      • New Talent: One With the Wind – You have a 10% chance to not reset your Elusive Brawler stacks on a successful dodge.
      • New Talent: August Blessing – When you would be healed above maximum health, you instead convert an amount equal to 40% of your critical strike chance to a heal over time effect.
      • New Talent: Ox Stance – Casting Purifying Brew grants charges/stacks of Ox Stance, based on Stagger level. When you take damage that is greater than 60% of your current health, a charge is consumed to increase the amount you Stagger.
      • New Talent: Black Ox Adept – Rising Sun Kick grants a stack of Ox Stance.
      • New Talent: Heightened Guard – Ox Stance will now trigger when an attack is larger than 50% of your current health.
      • Chi Surge and Call to Arms are no longer a choice talent.
      • Anvil & Stave has been updated – Each time you dodge or an enemy misses, you reduce the remaining cooldown on your Brews by 0.5/1 second. Effect reduced for each recent melee attacker. Was 3 second internal cooldown.
      • Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox has been updated – While Niuzao is active, Purifying Brew increases the damage of Niuzao’s next Stomp, based on Stagger level. Damage is split between all enemies. Was Stagger Purified
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Healing Elixir
        • Clash (moved to class tree)
        • Graceful Exit
        • Bonedust Brew
        • Bountiful Brew
        • Attenuation
    • Windwalker
      • New Talent: Memory of the Monastery – Tiger Palm’s chance to activate Blackout Kick! Is increased by 15% and consuming Teachings of the Monastery grants you 1% haste for 5 seconds equal to the amount of stacks consumed.
      • Revolving Whirl now additionally reduces the cooldown of Whirling Dragon Punch by 5 seconds.
      • Fury of Xuen now increases Critical Strike chance (was haste) and Invokes Xuen, the White Tiger for 10 seconds (was 8 seconds).
      • Fixed an issue that caused Jade Ignition’s damage to be reduced during Storm, Earth, and Fire.
      • Skytouch has been removed.
  • PRIEST
    • Voidweaver
      • Void Blast base insanity generation reduced to 6 (was 8).
      • Depth of Shadows’ chance to summon a Shadowfiend reduced.
  • ROGUE
    • New Talent: Shadowheart – Leech increased by 3% while Stealthed.
    • Acrobatic Strikes has been redesigned – Auto-attacks increase auto-attack damage and movement speed by 1% for 3 seconds, stacking up to 10%.
      • Developer’s note: Acrobatic Strikes no longer increases the range of melee attacks. We are revisiting increased melee range talents across the game, and most are being removed. Default melee range has increased since these talents were originally created, allowing specs with increased range to attack from well outside where it appears they should be able to.
    • Cut to the Chase moved from Assassination talent tree to baseline all specs, triggering from Envenom/Dispatch/Eviscerate.
    • Vanish’s guaranteed stealth duration now 1.5 seconds in PvP combat (base 3 seconds).
    • Tight Spender now reduces Energy cost of finishing moves by 6% (was 10%).
    • Subterfuge is now a 2-point talent, effect duration 3/6 seconds.
    • Some talents have moved locations.
    • Without a Trace moved from Subtlety to Class tree in capstone location, replacing Shadow Dance.
    • Nightstalker has been removed.
    • Assassination
      • New Talent: Rapid Injection – Envenom deals 10% increased damage while Envenom’s effect is active.
      • Serrated Bone Spike has been redesigned – (Passive) Prepare a Serrated Bone Spike every 30 seconds, stacking up to 3. Rupture spends a stack to embed a bone spike in its target:
        • Deals Physical damage and Bleed damage every 3 seconds until the target dies or leaves combat. Refunds a stack when the target dies.
        • Generates 1 combo point plus 1 additional per active bone spike.
      • Serrated Bone Spike initial damage reduced by 24% and damage over time damage reduced by 9%.
      • Improved Garrote effect duration increased to 6 seconds (was 3 seconds).
      • Indiscriminate Carnage effect duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Kingsbane damage bonus per poison application now has a stated cap at 1000% from 50 stacks (was 1980% at 99 stacks).
      • Kingsbane base damage over time increased by 6%.
        • Developer’s note: Kingsbane was originally intended to be uncapped, but abilities and talents introduced in the Dragonflight expansion allowed players to reach its previously-unreachable hidden cap. Increasing or removing the cap in the current environment would reinforce poor gameplay outcomes and continue to constrain talent options, so a lower cap is being introduced with the intention of having Kingsbane remain a valuable component of any build that includes it, but not by being required as every build’s all-important main character.
      • Sepsis has been removed.
    • Outlaw
      • Ace Up Your Sleeve now grants 4 combo points when triggered (was 5).
      • Mastery: Main Gauche damage increased by 24%.
      • Adrenaline Rush has been updated:
        • No longer increases global cooldown recovery rate by 25% while active.
        • Now increases global cooldown recovery rate equal to your Haste while active, up to 25%.
        • Now increases Energy regeneration by 50% (was 60%).
      • Count the Odds effect now has base chance 10% (was 8%) and duration 8 seconds (was 5 seconds), but no longer doubled while Stealthed.
      • Underhanded Upper Hand no longer affects Slice and Dice duration and no longer grants 3 seconds of Subterfuge duration (Stealth ability use).
      • Crackshot’s Dispatch effectiveness reduced to 50% (was 75%).
      • Thief’s Versatility now increases Versatility by 3% (was 4%).
      • Some talents have moved locations.
      • Sepsis has been removed.
    • Subtlety
      • Premeditation has been redesigned – After entering Stealth, your next combo point generating ability generates full combo points.
      • Invigorating Shadowdust now reduces cooldowns by 10/20 seconds (was 15/30 seconds).
      • Shadow Dance moved from the Class talent tree to Subtlety talent tree.
      • Shadow Focus now reduces costs by 5%.
      • Some talents have moved locations.
  • WARLOCK
    • Hellcaller
      • Seeds of Their Demise has been redesigned – Blackened Soul damage increased by 30%. When Blackened Soul deals damage, you have a chance to gain Ritual of Ruin/Tormented Crescendo.
      • Malevolence, Wither, and Seeds of Their Demise icons have been updated.
    • Demonology
        • You now have a 35% chance (was 100% chance) to generate a Demonic Core from your summoned Dreadstalkers when they fade.
    • Destruction
      • New Talent: Devastation – Increases the Critical Strike chance of your Destruction spells by 5%.
      • New Talent: Emberstorm – Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 2/4% and reduces the cast time of your Incinerate spell by 10/20%.
      • New Talent: Decimating Bolt – Hurl bolts of decimating magic at your target, dealing Shadow damage and increase the damage of your next 3 Incinerates by 40%. Decimating Bolt’s damage, and the bonus to Incinerate both increase as your target’s health decreases.
      • New Talent: Summoner’s Embrace – Increases the damage dealt by your spells and your demon by 3%.
      • Ruin has been redesigned – Increases the Critical Strike damage of your Destruction spells by 5/10%.
      • Inferno has been redesigned – Rain of Fire damage is increased by 20% and its Soul Shard cost is reduced by 1.
      • Decimation has been redesigned – Your Incinerate and Conflagrate casts on targets that have 35% or less health reduces the cooldown of Soulfire by 5 seconds and reduce its cast time by 40% for 10 seconds.
      • Chaos Incarnate has been redesigned – Chaos Bolt, Rain of Fire, and Shadowburn always gain 70% of the maximum benefit from your Mastery: Chaotic Energies.
      • Chaos Bolt has been removed from the Destruction specialization tree and is now baseline.
      • Conflagrate has been moved to row 1.
      • Backdraft has been moved to row 2.
      • Roaring Blaze and Improved Conflagrate have been moved to row 3.
      • Ruin has been moved to row 9.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Avatar of Destruction
        • Chaosbringer

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • Improved clarity when enchanting items:
    • Cursor highlight when mousing over items that can be enchanted by current enchantment
    • Dimming icons of non-enchantable items
    • Animations when an item has been enchanted
  • Updates to many world map icons, including: Rare, Rare Elite, Cave Entrances, Teleporters, Great Vault, Catalyst Convertor, Digsites, Pet Bettles, Dungeon, and Raid.
  • Checkboxes for tracking have been added to the quest log for easier management.
  • Characters on the character select screen are now directly clickable within the scene.
  • The Group Manager has been updated with new art and feature improvements, including:
    • Additional options to restrict group pings
    • Easier access to both world and unit raid markers
    • UI panel reorganized so related options are together in sections
    • Added instance options previously only found in the character portrait dropdown
  • Health bars have been updated with a visualization that shows the percentage of temporary max health that is depleted.

Warcraft Short Story: “A Whisper of Warning”

Quote from: Blizzard

Khadgar has dispatched Alleria Windrunner on a dark mission, one that portends an uncertain future for Azeroth. Before she departs, she visits her lost home of Silvermoon on a mission of peace and connection. Much remains unsaid between Alleria and her son, Arator—hindered by fear and misunderstanding—but Alleria would have her son know his mother and her intentions before a new evil threatens Azeroth again.

The afternoon sun filtered through the crimson leaves overhead as Alleria Windrunner walked the path toward Silvermoon City. In times past, happier times, she might have flown or used a portal to appear inside the city walls, but as it was, she approached warily, as if nearing a sleeping beast that did not wake gently. Once, she had defended these walls, these people. But now?

Now, to many, she was the source of danger.

Read and download this short story by Delilah S. Dawson.

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