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Patch 10.0.7 PTR: Onyx Annulet Ring and Primordial Stones

Quote from: Blizzard

Greetings!

We’d like to shed some light on the specifics of the feature surrounding Primordial Stones and how they work.

By questing in 10.0.7, you’ll unlock the Zskera Vaults, which is a solo instanced dungeon with some fun puzzles to solve. As you venture through, you’ll acquire the Onyx Annulet ring and a bunch of Primordial Stones that can be socketed into it. These stones have trinket-like effects, and some also work together to create some spicy combinations.

When it comes to acquiring these:

  • The Zskera Vaults are where you get Primordial Stones, and can be accessed with keys that you’ll receive from rares and chests across the Forbidden Reach.
  • The keys will be Bind On Account, so you can get your alts into the Zskera Vaults easily.
  • You can crush your Primordial Stones into fragments which can be repurposed into an item to upgrade your favorite stones (through your local Jewelcrafter).
  • You can use these fragments to purchase newer stones from Researcher Imareth. While you can’t buy specific stones, they come in families, so you’ll be able to target the Stones you want.
  • Primordial Stones can be unsocketed from the Annulet.

Our intent here is to minimize random outcomes so that you can customize and experiment with your Onyx Annulet, similar to the Mechagon Trinket (the Pocket-Sized Computation Device). Being able to upgrade your favorite Stones will also increase the item level of the ring up to 424, allowing its power to scale up in a deterministic way.

Of course, given its maximal item level, we expect that you’ll replace it with something better in Dragonflight Season 2.

Thank you for reading. We’re excited to see what you do with them, and how you feel when you get your hands on these!

Hotfixes: February 8 2023, Trading Post Developer Live Chat

In addition to a couple of hotfixes Blizzard also posted a Developer Live Chat with the Community Council to answer questions about the Trading Post as well as give an idea as to what to expect to see in future months. One main takeaway is that the devs are looking for feedback on what the players want from the Trading Post.

Quote from: Blizzard

February 8, 2023

Dungeons and Raids

  • Brackenhide Hollow
    • Hackclaw’s War-Band
      • Fixed an issue where Rogues would be knocked out of stealth before combat.

Items and Rewards

  • Vendors have amassed enough Serevite Skeleton Keys to lockpick for years to come and are now offering a lower price for them.

Mounts

  • Jade, Bright Foreseer has removed its unnecessary horseshoes and now just leaves water splashes behind it.
Quote from: Blizzard

Today, several members of the WoW Community Council met with the World of Warcraft Trading Post developers Jeremy Feasel, Jen Hauer, Crystal Tam, Tyler Neuhaus, and Kenny McBride.

The discussion covered details on the development of the Trading Post as a new WoW feature as well as thoughts and suggestions about what items and cosmetics could be included in future updates.

Feel free to use this thread for any follow-up questions, thoughts on the Trading Post so far, or any other related discussion.

Thanks!

Dragonflight 10.0.7 PTR Development Notes 7 February 2023

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello everyone. Here is this week’s update to the 10.0.7 PTR:

CLASSES

  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Frost
      • Remorseless Winter has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 19.
      • Might of the Frozen Wastes has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 25.
      • Frostreaper has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 28.
      • New Talent: Fatal Fixation – Killing Machine can stack up to 1 additional time. Replaces Frostreaper on the talent tree.
      • Biting Cold has moved to Remorseless Winter’s old position in the Frost specialization tree.
      • Everfrost has moved to Biting Cold’s old position in the Frost specialization tree.
      • Obliteration now causes Soul Reaper to also grant Killing Machine and have a chance to generate a Rune during Pillar of Frost
        • Developers’ note: Frost will be seeing a few updates to their tree in 10.0.7. Currently Frost feels 1 or 2 points off from being able to make more meaningful choices within their spec tree. To help ease some of this we are shifting a few talents to be auto-learned on level up and replacing them with a new or existing talent. The new version of the tree should offer a little more variety and feel less linear when allocating your talent points and give you more choice based on the content you are running.
  • MONK
    • Mistweaver
      • Sheilun’s Gift now triggers Mastery: Gust of Mist exclusively onto its primary target.
      • Sheilun’s Gift healing increased by 10%.
      • New Talent: Legacy of Wisdom – Sheilun’s Gift heals 2 additional allies and its cast time is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
    • Windwalker
      • New Talent: Skytouch – Tiger Palm applies an effect which increases your critical strike chance by 50% for 6 seconds on the target. This effect cannot be applied more than once every 1 minute per target.
        • This has been added as a choice node on Skyreach for players that still want the benefit additional critical strike but do not want to dash to their target.
  • PALADIN
    • Seal of Mercy is now a 1 rank talent (was 2).
    • Divine Toll and Divine Resonance have been added to the class tree.
    • Removed Seraphim and Sanctified Wrath talents from the class tree.
    • Retribution Aura has been redesigned – now grants 5% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds to all party or raid members whenever a party or raid member within 40 yards takes more than 50% of their health in damage. This can only occur once every 30 seconds.
    • Protection
      • Sanctified Wrath has been added to the Protection tree.
      • Talents positioned around the 20 point gate have been adjusted.
      • Spellwarding has been moved below the 20 point gate.
      • Strength in Conviction and Faith in the Light have swapped locations in the Protection tree.
      • Faith’s Armor is now a 2-rank talent and now causes Shield of the Righteous to grant additional armor.
    • Developer’s Notes
      • We are hard at work on the updates to the Retribution tree and are close to being able to share it with the community and a set of in depth development notes to give an overview of what’s changed.
      • We’re also making some changes to the Paladin class tree, some of which you’ll see in today’s PTR update.
      • Retribution Aura in Dragonflight has functioned only as a personal throughput benefit to Paladins, locking them out of using other Auras during gameplay. We’re looking to change that, so Retribution Aura now grants 5% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds to all party or raid members whenever a party or raid member within 40 yards takes more than 50% of their health in damage. This can only occur once every 30 seconds.
      • In addition to the changes to Retribution Aura, Retribution Paladins will receive a baseline passive: Instrument of Retribution – When any party or raid member within 40 yards dies, you gain Avenging wrath for 12 sec.
      • Seraphim has been removed from the Paladin talent tree, in our previous developer notes we mentioned points regarding stacking auras and having an excessive amount of buttons to press. Seraphim is a fairly large factor in both and we feel it is better to take the throughput provided by this cooldown and build it into your core abilities.
      • As a result of the above, we’ve decided to move Divine Toll to the Paladin class tree to ensure there’s still a powerful and exciting node at the end point of the class tree as a goal.
      • We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks and hearing to your feedback!
  • SHAMAN
    • Earth Elemental and Primal Earth Elemental no longer taunt or pulse threat to enemies the Shaman is not in combat with.
    • Earth Elemental and Primal Earth Elemental no longer taunt or pulse threat to enemies that are attacking a player with a tank specialization.
      • Developer’s notes: We have reverted this change to Earth Elemental and Primal Earth Elemental after reviewing feedback we’ve received.
    • Swirling Currents has been redesigned – Increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem and Cloudburst Totem by 10%/20% for Restoration and 20%/40% for Elemental and Enhancement.
    • Fixed an issue causing the self-cast version of Earth Shield from Elemental Orbit to not increase the healing done by Healing Stream Totem or Healing Tide Totem.
    • Several talents have moved positions in the class tree.
    • Earthgrab Totem now replaces Earthbind Totem. Earthgrab Totem is now the left-most option.
    • Shamans that are in Ghost Wolf now display the Maelstrom resource on their Personal Resource Display instead of mana if they are Elemental specialization.
    • Elemental
      • Electrified Shocks duration increased to 9 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented Electrified Shocks from applying to the primary target.
    • Restoration
      • A choice node has been added below Mana Tide Totem:
        • New Talent: Resonant Waters – Increases the duration of Mana Tide Totem by 4 seconds and increases its radius by 20 yards.
        • New Talent: Spiritwalker’s Tidal Totem – After using Mana Tide Totem, the cast time of Healing Wave and Chain Heal is reduced by 50% and the mana cost of Healing Wave and Chain Heal are reduced by 50% for 10 seconds.
      • All healing done increased by 8%.
      • Acid Rain damage reduced by 20%.
      • Ancestral Awakening heals for 15%/30% of the amount healed (was 10%/20%).
      • Earthen Harmony has been redesigned – Earth Shield reduces damage taken by 3%/6% and its healing is increased by 50%/100% on targets below 75% health.
      • Cloudburst Totem healing no longer contributes to Ancestral Guidance.
      • Ancestral Awakening and Ancestral Guidance now contribute to Cloudburst Totem healing.
      • Earthliving Weapon’s proc sound effect has been lowered in volume.
  • WARLOCK
    • Demonic Inspiration has been redesigned – Increases the attack speed of your primary pet by 5%. Increases Grimoire of Sacrifice damage by 15%.
    • Wrathful Minion has been redesigned – Increases the damage done by your primary pet by 5%. Increases Grimoire of Sacrifice damage by 15%.
    • Affliction
      • Dread Touch now lasts 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).

ITEMS AND REWARDS

  • The Divine Kiss of Ohn’ahra mount has been updated to its correct visual in the mount journal.
  • Stolen Breath of Ohn’ahra now also drops from The Nokhud Offensive on Mythic+ difficulty.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • PRIEST
    • Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked now have a spell highlight when Catharsis is above 80% of its maximum stored damage.
    • Shadow
      • Fixed an issue that allowed Void Tendrils’ root effect to persist after they’ve been destroyed.

PROFESSIONS

  • SKINNING
    • Skinning enemies has a new animation.

Hotfixes: February 7 2023, Twitter Integration Removed

Quote from: Blizzard

February 7, 2023

Classes

  • Druid
    • Guardian
      • Fixed an issue causing Raze to sometimes fail to strike large enemies even while in melee range.
  • Priest
    • Shadow
      • Fixed an issue causing Pain of Death to sometimes deal more damage than intended.
  • Warlock
    • Fixed an issue where Demonic Servitude was not being cleared when Reign of Tyranny is re-talented.
    • Fixed an issue where Reign of Tyranny would not dynamically update when re-talenting into it.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Shrine of the Storm
    • Fixed an issue causing Galecaller Apprentice’s Slicing Hurricane to sometimes inflict more damage than intended.
  • Underrot
    • Fixed an issue causing Living Rot’s Wave of Decay to sometimes inflict more damage than intended.

Items and Rewards

  • The buffs from the Sands of Temporal Perfection should now only benefit the player wielding them.

Quests

  • The Storm Peaks
    • Fixed an issue where players were not able to complete “Changing the Wind’s Course” when out-leveling the content.
  • Stormsong Valley
Quote from: Blizzard

Over the next two days, we will update World of Warcraft® to remove the integrated Twitter® posting feature. After this small update, the function to Tweet from in-game will no longer be available, and the settings which store your Twitter credentials will no longer appear.

This will not require any action by players.

Hotfixes: February 6, 2023

Quote from: Blizzard

February 6, 2023

Classes

  • Death Knight
    • Blood
      • [With weekly restarts] Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Blood Plague damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Blood Boil damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Death and Decay damage increased by 20%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Shattering Bone damage increased by 5%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Sanguine Ground damage while inside Death and Decay increased to 6% (was 5%).
    • Frost
      • [With weekly restarts] Unleashed Frenzy duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • [With weekly restarts] Cleaving Strikes Obliterate now hits 2 additional targets (was 1).
      • [With weekly restarts] Frost Fever damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Glacial Advance damage increased by 20%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Frost Strike damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Frostwhelp’s Aid damage increased by 100%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Frostscythe damage increased by 35%.
  • Druid
    • Fixed an issue that caused Nature’s Vigil to transfer damage from Verdancy and Embrace of the Dream.
    • Nature’s Vigil damage will no longer target enemies in crowd control, stealthed or invisible enemies, totems, or enemies out of combat with the Druid.
    • Guardian
      • [With weekly restarts] Armor bonus from Ironfur increased by 20%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Reinforced Fur increases armor from Ironfur by 15% (was 8%) and Barkskin’s damage reduction by 10% (was 5%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Ursoc’s Fury now grants absorb shield based on 50% of damage dealt by Thrash and Maul (was 30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Reinvigoration’s Frenzied Regeneration cooldown reduction increased cooldown reduction increased to 20/40% (was 15/30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Layered Mane’s chance to trigger increased to 10/20% (was 5/10%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Lunar Beam healing increased by 230% and cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
    • Developers’ notes: We are keeping a close eye on variances in survivability across tank specializations. These changes are intended to alleviate some difficulties Guardian Druids have been experiencing with certain damage types, as well as targeting some underperforming talents which were not delivering meaningful survivability improvements.
    • Restoration
      • [With weekly restarts] All healing reduced by 3%. This does not apply to PvP combat.
  • Evoker
    • Devastation
      • Living Flame healing will once again have a chance to grant Essence Burst when cast with Leaping Flames.
    • Preservation
      • [With weekly restarts] All healing reduced by 5%.
  • Hunter
    • Beast Mastery
      • [With weekly restarts] Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
    • Marksmanship
      • [With weekly restarts] Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
    • Survival
      • [With weekly restarts] Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
  • Monk
    • Mistweaver
      • [With weekly restarts] All healing increased by 3%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Vivify healing increased by 5%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Clouded Focus now increases healing and decreases mana cost by 20% (was 15%) for Enveloping Mist and Vivify.
      • [With weekly restarts] Peaceful Mending now increases the healing of Enveloping Mist and Renewing Mist by 25/50% (was 15/30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Spinning Crane Kick damage increased by 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Ancient Concordance increases the chance for Rising Sun Kick to reset by 5/10% (was 3/6%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Lesson of Doubt increases healing and damage by up to 40% (was 35%).
  • Paladin
    • Protection
      • [With weekly restarts] Avenger’s Shield damage increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Blessed Hammer/Hammer of the Righteous/Crusader Strike damage increased by 30%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Hammer of Wrath damage increased by 15%.
  • Priest
    • Holy
      • [With weekly restarts] All healing done increased by 3%.
  • Shaman
    • [With weekly restarts] Healing Surge healing increased by 10%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Chain Heal healing increased by 10%.
    • Restoration
      • [With weekly restarts] Healing Wave healing increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Healing Rain healing increased by 10%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Overflowing Shores healing increased by 10%.
  • Warlock
    • [With weekly restarts] Inquisitor’s Gaze Fel Barrage damage increased 35%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Inquisitor’s Gaze no longer casts Fel Blast.
    • [With weekly restarts] Summon Soulkeeper damage increased 35%.
    • Developers’ notes: Inquisitor’s Gaze and Summon Soulkeeper are not contributing to the Warlock damage profile as much as we’d like. After this adjustment, we’ll continue to watch Warlocks’ overall performance and we will make further adjustments if needed.
    • Demonology
      • [With weekly restarts] Wild Imp damage increased 15%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Vilefiend damage increased 30%.
    • Destruction
      • [With weekly restarts] Soul Fire damage increased 20%.
      • [With weekly restarts] Incinerate damage increased 5%.
    • Developers’ notes: We feel that both Destruction and Demonology could use some improvements to their overall contribution in single-target situations. These adjustments are specifically targeting talents that we feel could be more competitive, while also putting additional power into rotational spells.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Vault of the Incarnates
    • Sennarth, the Cold Breath
      • Suffocating Webs now reliably hits the intended number of targets.

Items and Rewards

  • Chronologically Unstable Loop, Bronze Band of Destinies, and Heat of Primal Winter are now eligible for socket upgrades. This fix is retroactive and requires relogging.
  • [With weekly restarts] Outdoor activities have generally had their item levels increased by 6 to 7 item levels. This includes: World Quests, Elite World Quests, and first weekly completion of Hunts, Dragonbane Keep, and Community Soup event.
  • Vestment of the Raging Tempests and Drakebreaker’s Vestment should now be eligible for the Revival Catalyst when fully upgraded.

Player versus Player

  • Items
    • [With weekly restarts] Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky now grants 1% attack speed in PvP (was 5%).
  • Classes
    • Demon Hunter
      • [With weekly restarts] Restless Hunter (Talent) damage bonus for next Blade Dance/Death Sweep reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
      • Developers’ notes: We’ve continued to see the potential burst provided by Restless Hunter much higher than we would like, especially in combination with Essence Break and The Hunt.
    • Druid
      • Guardian
        • [With weekly restarts] Frenzied Regeneration healing now 50% (was 62%) effective in PvP Combat.”
      • Developers’ note: This is intended to offset Reinvigoration’s buff noted above.
    • Evoker
      • [With weekly restarts] Living Flame healing increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Verdant Embrace healing increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Oppressing Roar increases the duration of incoming crowd control by 30% (was 20%) in PvP Combat.
      • Developers’ notes: This is intended to offset the above noted game-wide 5% healing reduction by targeting abilities that we would like to see more prominent in a Preservation Evoker’s PvP healing profile. Additionally, Oppressing Roar has not been as valuable a talent point as we’d hoped, so we are slightly increasing its effectiveness.
    • Hunter
      • Beast Mastery
        • [With weekly restarts] Stormwing Harrier’s Camouflage 4-piece now increases the damage of your next Kill Command by 10% in PvP (was 20%).
      • Marksmanship
        • [With weekly restarts] Rapid Fire damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] Aimed Shot damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] Chimaera Shot damage increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] Unerring Vision critical Strike Damage bonus effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
      • Developers’ notes: With the removal of Double Tap, Marksmanship Hunter damage has been lower than we would like to see, so we are increasing several main rotation abilities while decreasing Unerring Vision, with the goal of higher sustained damage.
    • Monk
      • Mistweaver
        • [With weekly restarts] Healing Sphere (PvP Talent) now triggers the dispel backlash effects from Unstable Affliction and Vampiric Touch. Healing increased by 320%.
      • Developers note: This change is to have more consistency among dispel effects that are intended to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits of dispelling it. Additionally, we felt that the healing on Healing Sphere has been too weak.
    • Priest
      • Shadow
        • [With weekly restarts] Psyfiend (PvP Talent) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
      • Developers’ notes: Psyfiend’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.
    • Rogue
      • Assassination
        • [With weekly restarts] Vault Delver’s Toolkit 4-piece set bonus Bleed damage bonus reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
      • Developers’ notes: The 4-piece set bonus for Assassination has been more significant in their damage profile than we would like.
        • [With weekly restarts] Wound Poison (Deathmark version) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
      • Developer’s note: The Wound Poison (from Deathmark) healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.
    • Shaman
      • Restoration
        • [With weekly restarts] Damage dealt to Earthen Wall Totem caused by damage absorbed by pets is reduced by 90%.
      • Developers’ notes: The intent for this adjustment is to make Earthen Wall Totem feel more impactful as a defensive ability. As we noted, it was being destroyed too quickly in scenarios where teammates have pets.
    • Warlock
      • Affliction
        • [With weekly restarts] Unstable Affliction backlash damage increased by 35%.
          • Developers’ notes: After our recent changes to normalize Unstable Affliction’s backlash damage, we’re seeing it get dispelled frequently. Our intent is for dispelling Unstable Affliction to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits and its damage was not fulfilling that.
      • Destruction
        • [With weekly restarts] Chaos Bolt damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
        • [With weekly restarts] Fixed an issue that caused Bane of Havoc (PvP Talent) to deal more damage than intended to targets.
        • Developer Note: We’re addressing a bug with Bane of Havoc that was causing Havoc to deal full damage instead of the intended 60%, which is a significant nerf to the spec in PvP. Chaos Bolt has not been as threatening as intended in Dragonflight, so we’re increasing its damage to compensate for the bug fix.
        • [With weekly restarts] Fel Fissure (PvP Talent) Healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
          • Developers’ notes: Fel Fissure’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.
    • Warrior
      • Arms
        • [With weekly restarts] Executioner’s Precision is now 30% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
        • [With weekly restarts] Martial Prowess is now 33% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
        • [With weekly restarts] Overpower damage increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] Slam damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat.
      • Developers’ notes: We’ve seen Mortal Strike come to represent too much of Arms Warriors’ total damage in PvP. Additionally, it often results in spikier damage than we’re comfortable with, so we’re moving toward an overall rebalance across several abilities.

Professions

  • Alchemy
    • Potion Cauldrons have had their size greatly increased.
  • Enchanting
    • The Prismatic Diamond Loop that drops from Avalantus in the Primalist Future should now disenchant into Dragonflight materials.

Quests

  • [With weekly restarts] Gold rewards from world quests have been increased.
  • The Azure Span
    • Big Kinook should now give out tasks to more players at a time when the Community Feast is very busy.
    • [With weekly restarts] The Tuskarr of Iskaara will now hold their Community Feast once every 1.5 hours (was every 3.5 hours).
      • Developers’ note: After this change the event timer will always be visible on the map to show the 15-minute meal prep timer before cooking begins, the 15 minutes while cooking is active, and the 60 minutes of dining time for adventurers to chow down on the soup that you worked so diligently on.

Upcoming Changes: Class Tuning & BFA Dungeon Tuning 8 February, Cross Realm Mythic Raiding & Valor/Conquest Uncapped 15 February

Blizzard has announced changes taking place with the next 2 weekly resets. There will be class tuning on the 8th as well as a fix for the BfA dungeon tuning. And on the 15th Cross Realm Mythic raiding will become available and the Valor & Conquest Point caps will be removed!

Quote from: Blizzard

With scheduled weekly maintenance on February 8, we intend to deploy a number of tuning adjustments to specializations based on their performance in endgame content.

Due to the nature of our internal testing, some of these changes will also appear in the 10.0.7 PTR between now and February 8. This thread is for changes that will go into the live game on version 10.0.5 next week.

Classes

Death Knight

  • Blood
    • Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
    • Blood Plague damage increased by 15%.
    • Blood Boil damage increased by 15%.
    • Death and Decay damage increased by 20%.
    • Shattering Bone damage increased by 5%.
    • Sanguine Ground damage while inside Death and Decay increased to 6% (was 5%).
  • Frost
    • Unleashed Frenzy duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Cleaving Strikes Obliterate now hits 2 additional targets (was 1).
    • Frost Fever damage increased by 15%.
    • Glacial Advance damage increased by 20%.
    • Frost Strike damage increased by 10%.
    • Frostwhelp’s Aid damage increased by 100%.
    • Frostscythe damage increased by 35%

Druid

  • Guardian
    • Armor from Ironfur increased by 20%.
    • Reinforced Fur now increases Armor from Ironfur by 15% (was 8%) and Barkskin’s damage reduction by 10% (was 5%).
    • Ursoc’s Fury now grants an absorb shield based on 50% of damage dealt by Thrash and Maul (was 30%).
    • Reinvigoration’s Frenzied Regeneration cooldown reduction increased to 20/40% (was 15/30%).
    • Layered Mane chance to proc increased to 10/20% (was 5/10%).
    • Lunar Beam healing increased by 130% and cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
  • Developers’ notes: We are keeping a close eye on variances in survivability across tank specializations. These changes are intended to alleviate some difficulties Guardian Druids have been experiencing with certain damage types, as well as targeting some underperforming talents which were not delivering meaningful survivability improvements.
  • Restoration
    • All healing reduced by 3%. This does not apply to PvP combat.

Evoker

  • Preservation
    • All healing reduced by 5%.

Hunter

  • Beast Mastery
    • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
  • Survival
    • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.

Monk

  • Mistweaver
    • All healing increased by 3%.
    • Vivify healing increased by 5%.
    • Clouded Focus now increases healing and decreases mana cost by 20% (was 15%) for Enveloping Mist and Vivify.
    • Peaceful Mending now increases the healing of Enveloping Mist and Renewing Mist by 25/50% (was 15/30%).
    • Spinning Crane Kick Damage increased by 15%.
    • Ancient Concordance increases the chance for Rising Sun Kick to reset by 5/10% (was 3/6%).
    • Lesson of Doubt increases healing and damage by up to 40% (was 35%).

Paladin

  • Protection
    • Avenger’s Shield damage increased by 10%.
    • Blessed Hammer/Hammer of the Righteous/Crusader Strike damage increased by 30%.
    • Hammer of Wrath damage increased by 15%.

Priest

  • Holy
    • All healing increased by 3%.

Shaman

  • Healing Surge healing increased by 10%.
  • Chain Heal healing increased by 10%.
  • Restoration
    • Healing Wave healing increased by 10%.
    • Healing Rain healing increased by 10%.
    • Overflowing Shores healing increased by 10%.

Warlock

  • Inquisitor’s Gaze Fel Barrage damage increased 35%.
  • Inquisitor’s Gaze no longer casts Fel Blast.
  • Summon Soulkeeper damage increased 35%.
  • Developers’ notes: Inquisitor’s Gaze and Summon Soulkeeper are not contributing to the Warlock damage profile as much as we’d like. After this adjustment, we’ll continue to watch Warlocks’ overall performance and we will make further adjustments if needed.
  • Destruction
    • Soul Fire damage increased 20%.
    • Incinerate damage increased 5%.
  • Demonology
    • Wild Imp damage increased 15%.
    • Vilefiend damage increased 30%.
  • Developers’ notes: We feel that both Destruction and Demonology could use some improvements to their overall contribution in single-target situations. These adjustments are specifically targeting talents that we feel could be more competitive, while also putting additional power into rotational spells.

Player versus Player

Items

  • Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky now grants 1% attack speed in PvP Combat (was 5%).

Demon Hunter

  • Havoc
    • Restless Hunter (Talent) damage bonus for next Blade Dance/Death Sweep reduced by 40% in PvP Combat.
  • Developers’ notes: We’ve continued to see the potential burst provided by Restless Hunter much higher than we would like, especially in combination with Essence Break and The Hunt.

Druid

  • Guardian
    • Frenzied Regeneration is now 50% effective in PvP Combat (was 62%).
  • Developers’ note: This is intended to offset Reinvigoration’s buff noted above.

Evoker

  • Living Flame healing increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
  • Verdant Embrace healing increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
  • Oppressing Roar increases the duration of incoming crowd control by 30% (was 20%) in PvP Combat.
  • Developers’ notes: This is intended to offset the above noted game-wide 5% healing reduction by targeting abilities that we would like to see more prominent in a Preservation Evoker’s PvP healing profile. Additionally, Oppressing Roar has not been as valuable a talent point as we’d hoped, so we are slightly increasing its effectiveness.

Hunter

  • Beast Mastery
    • Stormwing Harrier’s Camouflage 4-piece now increases the damage of your next Kill Command by 10% in PvP (was 20%).
  • Marksmanship
    • Rapid Fire damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
    • Aimed Shot damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
    • Chimaera Shot damage increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
    • Unerring Vision critical strike damage bonus effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
  • Developers’ notes: With the removal of Double Tap, Marksmanship Hunter damage has been lower than we would like to see, so we are increasing several main rotation abilities while decreasing Unerring Vision, with the goal of higher sustained damage.

Monk

  • Mistweaver
    • Healing Sphere (PvP Talent) – Now triggers the dispel backlash effects from Unstable Affliction and Vampiric Touch. Healing increased by 320%.
  • Developers note: This change is to have more consistency among dispel effects that are intended to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits of dispelling it. Additionally, we felt that the healing on Healing Sphere has been too weak.

Priest

  • Shadow
    • Psyfiend (PvP Talent) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
  • Developers’ notes: Psyfiend’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Rogue

  • Assassination
    • Vault Delver’s Toolkit 4-piece set bonus Bleed damage bonus reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
  • Developers’ notes: The 4-piece set bonus for Assassination has been more significant in their damage profile than we would like.
    • Wound Poison (Deathmark version) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
  • Developer’s note: The Wound Poison (from Deathmark) healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Shaman

  • Restoration
    • Damage dealt to Earthen Wall Totem caused by damage absorbed by pets is reduced by 90%.
  • Developers’ notes: The intent for this adjustment is to make Earthen Wall Totem feel more impactful as a defensive ability. As we noted, it was being destroyed too quickly in scenarios where teammates have pets.

Warlock

  • Affliction
    • Unstable Affliction backlash damage increased by 35%.
  • Developers’ notes: After our recent changes to normalize Unstable Affliction’s backlash damage, we’re seeing it get dispelled frequently. Our intent is for dispelling Unstable Affliction to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits and its damage was not fulfilling that.
  • Destruction
    • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
    • Resolved an issue that caused Bane of Havoc (PvP Talent) to deal more damage than intended to targets.
  • Developers’ notes: We’re addressing a bug with Bane of Havoc that was causing Havoc to deal full damage instead of the intended 60%, which is a significant nerf to the spec in PvP. Chaos Bolt has not been as threatening as intended in Dragonflight, so we’re increasing its damage to compensate for the bug fix.
    • Fel Fissure (PvP Talent) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
  • Developers’ notes: Fel Fissure’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Warrior

  • Arms
    • Executioner’s Precision is now 30% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
    • Martial Prowess is now 33% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
    • Overpower damage increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
    • Slam damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat.
  • Developers’ notes: We’ve seen Mortal Strike come to represent too much of Arms Warriors’ total damage in PvP. Additionally, it often results in spikier damage than we’re comfortable with, so we’re moving toward an overall rebalance across several abilities.
Quote from: Blizzard

Along with the players who reported this, we found a bug causing enemies in Battle for Azeroth dungeons to scale well beyond their intended difficulty.

With scheduled realm maintenance on Wednesday, we will deploy a fix for the bug and the difficulty of the affected dungeons should become very similar to that of Chromie Time leveling dungeons.

To everyone who reported the state of BFA dungeons: thank you very much.

Cross Realm Mythic Raiding & Valor/Conquest Uncapped 15 February

Quote from: Blizzard

With the weekly reset in each region the week of February 15, we will enable cross-realm groups in Mythic difficulty Vault of the Incarnates.

This represents a shift in philosophy that has evolved over the last few raid tiers, where we’ve seen the pace at which the Hall of Fame filled up for both factions become unaligned with the timing that we would have chosen for players at large.

We will still maintain a Hall of Fame for this and future raids. To qualify for it in cross-realm groups, you must simply have at least 16 players from the same guild taking part in the raid.

With future raids, we’re looking into a more-scheduled approach for when cross-realm Mythic difficulty becomes available. We want to keep our options open for the timing to vary, since we yet don’t know the circumstances we might observe in the future, but we intend to provide further announcements like this one to give players time to reorganize.

Quote from: Blizzard

With weekly resets the week of February 15, we will remove the caps on the amounts of Conquest and Valor that can be earned and held by players. They will remain uncapped for the rest of Dragonflight Season 1.

As before, we like how in the early season, these caps reduce the feeling of being left behind for many players when it comes to PvP and Mythic+ gear. However, once several weeks have passed, we want to see players feel free to quickly gear up alts or return to the game after an absence and feel as though they can catch up quickly without hitting caps.
Thank you!

Hotfixes: February 2-3 2023, X-45 Heartbreaker (Big Love Rocket) Mount Drop Rate Increase

In addition to the usual hotfixes Blizzard has also announced the Big Love Rocket droprate during the Love is in the Air event will increase for the first box you open every day!

Quote from: Blizzard

February 3, 2023

Dungeons and Raids

  • Algeth’ar Academy
    • Fixed an issue causing Echo of Doragosa’s Arcane Missiles to fail to cast.
  • Mythic+
    • Shadowmoon Burial Grounds
      • Bonemaw
        • Quaking will no longer apply to players during Inhale.

Items and Rewards

  • Rare Vintage Arcwine now correctly consumes upon use.

Professions

  • The factions of the Dragon Isles have decided to make their overflowing supply bags more lucrative. They are now going to include some Primal Chaos, as well as rarely including a Dragon Shard of Knowledge or Bottled Essence. The tooltips of these caches will be adjusted to reflect this change in the future.

Quests

  • Storm’s Fury
    • The map icons for “Storm Warning” will no longer overlap with the event icon, obscuring if the event is active.

February 2, 2023

Classes

  • Druid
    • Skull Bash will no longer trigger Precognition when successfully interrupting a Holy Paladin with Concentration Aura.
    • Guardian
      • Fixed an issue where Tooth and Claw did not correctly grant 15% magic damage mitigation.
  • Evoker
    • Temporal Anomaly can now be cast while moving when releasing it through Stasis.
  • Monk
    • Mistweaver
      • Fixed an issue that caused Lesson of Anger to not duplicate some damage or healing sources.

Items and Rewards

  • Fixed an issue that prevented Blueprint: Utility Mechaclaw from dropping from the Caustic Mechaslime in Mechagon.

Player versus Player

  • Classes
    • Evoker
      • Quell will no longer trigger Precognition when successfully interrupting another player who is affected by Concentration Aura.
  • Solo Shuffle
    • Fixed an issue where summoned pets’ cooldowns were not correctly being reset between rounds.

Professions

  • Rabul of the Artisan’s Consortium now sells a Satchel of Coalescing Chaos that binds to your Blizzard Account. This item costs 80 Primal Chaos and provides 60 Primal Chaos to the character who uses it.
    • Developers’ notes: We’ve heard and agree with feedback that players have amassed surplus Primal Chaos on their mains while their alts need all the Primal Chaos they can get. Some Primal Chaos will be lost in the transaction. This is because we want to make sure that while this is a great way for a main to help an alt, the best way to gear up a character should generally be via actually playing that character. Nonetheless, this should provide an additional use for your Primal Chaos, as well as a good way to get some powerful gear to your alts quickly.
  • Inscription
    • Fixed an issue with Darkmoon Decks where the Sagescale Sigil’s shuffle-when-jumping mechanic was being extended to all Darkmoon Decks.
Quote from: Blizzard

The Love is in the Air world event is right around the corner, and we’re sharing the love this holiday season.

We’ve heard your feedback on the frustrations with X-45 Heartbreaker’s low drop rate and feeling the pressure of having to farm the mount by cycling through as many alts as possible every day. From now on, the first Heart-Shaped Box you receive each day across your Battle.net account will have a greatly increased chance to contain the X-45 Heartbreaker mount.

Any subsequent Heart-Shaped Boxes you earn on your characters after the first each day will drop the mount at the previous, original rate.

Love is in the Air begins on February 6 at 6:00 p.m. GMT in all regions. So spritz on your favorite perfume and head to the Shadowfang Keep event dungeon to defeat Apothecary Hummel for your chance at the fantastic flying fuschia fuselage you’ve fancied far too fervently for what seems like forever.

Good luck adventurers!