Hotfixes: February 24, 2022, Lowering Great Vault Participation Requirements, M+ Affix Adjustments in Season 3

February 24, 2022

Achievements

• Tales of the Exile will now track credit more reliably. Characters who have already completed portions of this achievement and did not get credit will be awarded credit on those portions upon their next login.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Soloist title to be awarded before earning the Supreme Soloist achievement.

Classes

• Druid
  • Balance
    • Fixed an issue where Ravenous Frenzy (Venthyr Ability) granted an additional stack for simultaneous casts (i.e Stampeding Roar giving a stack for both the cast and form change).
    • Fixed an issue where Kindred Affinity (Kyrian Ability) granted your partner too much of a stat increase when Empowered.
• Hunter
  • The bleed effect from Pouch of Razor Fragments (Runecarving Power) will no longer be applied to targets who are affected by crowd control effects that can break from taking damage.
• Mage
  • Fixed an issue where Radiant Spark (Kyrian Ability) could not be dispelled from the player.
• Priest
  • Shadow
    • Fixed an issue where Shadowform would be cancelled when interacting with chests in Zereth Mortis.
• Warlock
  • Fixed an issue where casting Grimoire of Sacrifice: Seduction (Talent) on another player would break immediately and would not clear damage over time effects.

Creatures and NPCs

• Fixed an issue where the map markers for rares would continue to appear after already being looted for the day.

Cypher of the First Ones

• Fixed an issue in Fugueal Protolock that allowed players to click on previously cleared nodes, causing the Protolock to become incompletable.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Fugueal Protolock given during the quest, “Your First Fugueal Protolock,” to reset prematurely.

Dungeons and Raids

• Spires of Ascension
  • Fixed an issue where some player abilities were causing the final group of enemies before Devos to reset.

Items and Rewards

• [With realm restarts] Participation thresholds have been updated for the Great Vault for Shadowlands Season 3:
  • The first Raid Vault now requires 2 Raid Boss victories (was 3).
  • The second Raid Vault now requires 5 Raid Boss victories (was 6).
  • The third Raid Vault now requires 8 Raid Boss victories (was 9).
    • Developer’s note: These thresholds for the raid will map better to the structure of the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, especially for groups attempting to move from one difficulty up into the next.
  • The third Mythic+ Vault now requires 8 completed dungeons (was 10).
  • The third PvP Vault now requires 5500 Honor earned in Rated PvP (was 6250).
    • Developer’s note: We want to make these feel a little more attainable, even as aspirational goals for highly-engaged players who love that type of content.
• Fixed an issue where players with unclaimed Great Vault rewards could become unable to acquire a Mythic Keystone until the following week. If you do not receive your Mythic Keystone as expected for any reason, you may speak to Ta’hsup in the Hall of Holding in Oribos to retrieve it.
• Fixed an issue that caused a Forgotten Treasure Vault to be stuck in a pillar.

Player versus Player

• Honorable kills in Zereth Mortis now count as progress towards the quest “Against Overwhelming Odds.”
• Druid
  • Restoration
    • Inner Peace (Talent) now correctly prevents knockbacks caused by a Monk’s Ring of Peace.
• Priest
  • Holy
    • When Spirit of the Redeemer (PvP Talent) is used in conjunction with Afterlife (Talent) to resurrect an ally, the Priest will now sacrifice their spirit and not return to life.
• Shaman
  • Enhancement
    • Sundering (Talent) will no longer incorrectly both consume the effects of Gladiator’s Resolve and apply its incapacitate effect to players under the effects of Gladiator’s Resolve.

Quests

• Fixed an issue where Xy agents could sometimes not become targetable during the quest, “Xy Are You Doing This?”
• Vulpera slaves during the quest “Ready to Riot” now always give credit to their liberators for the quest when freed, and once again accept the help of Alliance players.

Torghast, Tower of the Damned

• Adamant Vaults layers 13—16 now also awards Anima on completion.

To start you on your Shadowlands Season 3 journey, we’ll be lowering some of the Great Vault participation requirements with next week’s maintenance on March 1.

Raid Vault

The new thresholds for the raid requirements will map better to the structure of the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, especially for groups attempting to move from one difficulty up into the next.

• The first Raid Vault now requires 2 Raid Boss victories (was 3).
• The second Raid Vault now requires 5 Raid Boss victories (was 6).
• The third Raid Vault now requires 8 Raid Boss victories (was 9).

Mythic+ and PvP Vaults

We want to make these feel a little more attainable, even as aspirational goals for highly-engaged players who love that type of content.

• The third Mythic+ Vault now requires 8 completed dungeons (was 10).
• The third PvP Vault now requires 5500 Honor earned in Rated PvP (was 6250).

With each new season of Mythic+ dungeons, we take time during the development and testing of the content update to consider how M+ affixes have been working, design and implement new affixes, adjust dungeons where necessary, and add new dungeons.

M+ is played by a diverse range of players, so we try to make sure our feedback sources are just as diverse, to maximize our chances that we’ll spot pain points, knowing that different types of players have different experiences in M+. We look at data and statistics, forum posts, streams, and of course, we play a great number of keys ourselves at various levels and discuss our own experiences internally.

A major focus in these efforts is always how different weeks “feel” for players. An example of this was the adjustment to Ingra Maloch in Season 2. Player feedback was aligned with our own experiences that the penalty for missing a burst damage check felt overly punishing and made the dungeon less fun, and we didn’t want to wait too long to dial in the fun.

That said, a sense of mastery is a very important part of Mythic+, and changes that invalidate player strategies or otherwise involve relearning aspects of the game can have a negative effect on that. With that in mind, we prefer to make those types of changes at the start of a new season. For example, we felt that there was too much stress on tanks in Shadowlands Season 1, so going into Season 2 we sought to address that with our approach to the Tormented affix as well as changes to existing affixes.

For Season 3, our experiences again aligned with player feedback, and:

• We’ve made adjustments to the affix rotation to break up Necrotic and Sanguine, as this combination could overburden tanks.
• We’ve also made a change to the duration of the Necrotic affix to afford tanks more control over their ability to reset stacks.

As always, thanks to everyone who tested M+ dungeons on the Eternity’s End PTR with us, especially those who reported bugs and submitted thoughtful feedback. You made a positive impact on Season 3 and our future efforts in M+.