The pre-patch for Wrath of the Lich King Classic is now live, and with it, players can play as the Death Knight Hero Class before making their way into the frozen lands of Northrend to confront the Lich King. Players who play through the complete Death Knight starting experience* in Wrath of the Lich King Classic will earn the Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm** to carry them through their adventures in Shadowlands and beyond into the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.
Few proto-dragons were considered part of the frostbrood—only those that were risen from powerful remains, the members of long forgotten draconic flights.
Learn more about the Death Knight Hero Class in our article.
*Requires completion of the quest “Where Kings Walk” on Alliance characters or “Warchief’s Blessing” on Horde characters.
**Mount not available in World of Warcraft® Classic titles.
Last night was a busy night for Blizzard. Not only did the Dragonflight Beta get a new build, the 10.0 prepatch went live on the PTR as well! So now every player who wants to try out the talent revamp can do so! Furthermore there were a couple of hotfixes and we got a couple of blue posts for Druid and Warlock changes coming to the beta.
Resolved an issue where the Creation Spark fated power could negatively affect the following ability durations: Arcane Vulnerability, Azerite Radiation, Rune of Domination, Rune of Compulsion, Rune of Damnation, Torment, Imprisonment, and Death Sentence.
Resolved an issue where Rune of Compulsion-afflicted players negatively interact with movement speed increasing effects.
Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Druid
Shapeshifting into Cat Form once again automatically activates Track Humanoids.
Fixed an issue that prevented Tauren from using the Barber Shop.
It will now rain blood when Highlord Darion Mograine says “The skies turn red with the blood of the fallen!” during the Death Knight quest “The Light of Dawn.“
Dragonflight Pre-Expansion Patch Development Notes
CLASSES
New Talent System
Mage, Priest, and Rogue available for all races
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
All ranged spell casting and healing specializations have a new PvP Talent:
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
We are working on the next iteration of the Balance talent tree along with some baseline changes that you should see in the coming weeks. Players will see some of our changes in next week’s build, but the full suite of changes will not be in the Beta until the following week. That said, we want to give you a quick preview in the meantime:
Druid – Balance:
Mastery: Total Eclipse has been redesigned to the following:
Renamed to Mastery: Astral Invocation.
“Your Nature spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Sunfire. Your Arcane spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Moonfire.”
The previous design of Eclipse and Mastery: Total Eclipse created a situation where the power of the spec was dictated by Celestial Alignment, allowing for double dipping the mastery bonus. While this is fun, it takes away from the power and feel of the spec outside of cooldowns. With this new Mastery our goal is to further reinforce keeping your DoTs active while continuing to allow for Starsurge, Starfall, and Stellar flare to be able to gain extra benefit from Mastery even outside of cooldowns.
Eclipse
Eclipses no longer occur in alternation.
Eclipses no longer reduce casting time.
Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Arcane spells by 15%.
Solar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Nature spells by 15%.
From reviewing feedback and discussions, we found two common themes for Eclipse: 1) There is a lack of control with the rotation that can feel bad in both single target and AoE. 2) Having to cast 2 unempowered Wraths or Starfires to enter an Eclipse combined with their weaker base power and Starfire’s long cast time is underwhelming. With these changes our goal is to allow you to exit an Eclipse, say Solar, and then re-enter Solar Eclipse by casting 2 Starfires again. We’re also looking at adding talents to improve the feel of casting unempowered Wraths and Starfires between Eclipses.
Starfall has been redesigned to the following:
Instant. Costs 50 Astral Power.
“Calls down waves of falling stars at the targeted area, dealing Astral damage over 8 sec.”
We gave a cooldown version of Starfall a chance again for Shadowlands and we don’t feel it has played as well as we had hoped. Having a Starfall that moves with you is awesome and something we had hoped to keep, but for gameplay we feel it’s better to be able to choose to spend additional Astral Power for more Starfalls.
Improved Starsurge has been removed. Starsurge no longer empowers the damage bonus of active Eclipses.
Improved Starsurge encouraged pooling resources more than we would like and the mechanic was hidden enough for some players to be unaware of the gameplay it encouraged.
Shooting Stars
Has an increased chance to occur.
Stellar Flare damage now has a chance to proc Shooting Stars.
While we do not have plans to increase DoT damage, we feel we went too far in toning down Shooting Stars, so we’re looking to allow for it trigger more so that Astral Power generation from DoTs is more noticeable in AoE. Stellar Flare’s lack of gameplay hooks has made it an underwhelming talent choice, so we’re allowing it to trigger Shooting Stars.
This is only a small peek at what we’re working on and by no means a complete change list. Our goal with posting some of our larger and more systemic changes is to gather initial feedback and take that into account when continuing to implement our remaining changes. We appreciate the feedback thus far and look forward to hearing more of your thoughts regarding Balance Druid in the coming weeks.
In the next upcoming build for Dragonflight, you’ll see that Spell Lock has been removed from the talent tree and readded to the Felhunter. We wanted to take a moment to explain why we added Spell Lock to the talent tree and our decision to revert the change altogether.
Our goal was to try and de-power the Felhunter from a utility perspective to increase how often Warlocks might use different demons such as Sayaad or Voidwalker throughout endgame content. Our attempt at this was to move Spell Lock to Dragonflight’s new talent trees, first as a choice and then as a guaranteed ability. However, after playtesting, we noticed something was lost.
Warlocks have always been able to utilize demons to perform actions independent of whatever state the Warlock is currently in. Spell Lock is iconic to the Felhunter identity and has a lot of history behind it. We considered making this a choice-style node, but ultimately felt that we want to retain the gameplay of knowing what a Warlock is capable of by what demon they are accompanied by, and the unique identity Warlock has: utilizing powerful tools tied to their pets rather than themselves.
Thank you for your thoughts on this change, we genuinely appreciate the feedback, and we will continue to watch discussions as they unfold.
Hello! Here are this week’s updates to Dragonflight Beta:
CLASSES
NEW TALENT SYSTEM
STARTER BUILD
Evokers now have access to the Starter Build in their loadouts menu (this feature will be available to other classes in future updates). The Starter Build is a preset talent build created for players who prefer not to choose their own talents yet, but simply want a decent build that’s suitable for most content. This will be available to both leveling characters and max level characters.
DEATH KNIGHT
Class Tree
Festermight maximum stacks reduced to 20 (was 30).
New Talent: Enfeeble – Your Ghouls attack has a chance to reduce the targets movement speed by 30% and the damage they deal to you by 15%.
Unholy
Eternal Agony epidemic effect now also extends the duration of Dark Transformation.
Ghoulish Frenzy effect duration is now also extended when Dark Transformation’s duration is increased (i.e. by Eternal Agony).
Death Rot epidemic effect now applies Death Rot to your primary target.
Summon Gargoyle is now off global cooldown (GCD) and generates 50 Runic Power on use. Gargoyle Strike base damage increased by 60%.
DRUID
Class Tree
Added Improved Nature’s Cure for Restoration Druids to replace Remove Corruption.
Added Remove Corruption nodes visible for Balance, Feral, and Guardian in the same location.
Feral
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Protective Growth – Your Regrowth protects you, reducing all damage you take by 3% while it is on you.
New Talent: Pouncing Strikes – Grants benefits to Shred and Rake when striking from stealth.
New Talent: Piercing Claws (2 ranks) – Critical Strike chance increased by 2%.
New Talent: Double-Clawed Rake – Rake also applies Rake to 1 additional nearby target.
New Talent: Dreadful Bleeding – Rip damage increased by 15%.
New Talent: Tear Open Wounds – Primal Wrath consumes up to 4 seconds of Rip damage on targets it hits and deals 75% of it instantly.
New Talent: Ferocious Frenzy – Ferocious Bite also hits nearby enemies within 8 yards afflicted by Rip for 25% damage.
New Talent: Raging Fury – Finishing moves extend the duration of Tiger’s Fury by 0.2 seconds per combo point spent.
New Talent: Frantic Momentum – Finishing moves have a 3% chance per combo point spent to grant 10% Haste for 6 seconds.
New Talent: Berserk: Heart of the Lion – Each combo point spent reduces the cooldown of Berserk by 0.5 seconds.
New Talent: Wild Slashes – Swipe and Thrash deal 20% more damage.
New Talent: Bite Force – Ferocious Bite and Rip deal 10% more damage.
New Talent: Veinripper – Rip, Rake, and Thrash last 25% longer.
New Talent: Rip and Tear – Applying Rip to a target also applies a Tear that deals Bleed damage per combo point spent over 6 seconds.
Improved Bleeds changed to 1 rank (was 2).
Max Energy renamed to Tireless Energy, changed to 2 ranks (was 3) and grants 2% Haste per rank.
Sabertooth now increases Ferocious Bite damage by 20% and increases damage dealt by Rip by 4% for each combo point spent for 4 seconds.
Sudden Ambush changed to 2 ranks (was 3) and grants 2% chance to strike as if from stealth per rank (was 1%).
Berserk replaces Berserk: Relentlessness – Berserk now grants combo point refund on finishing moves and causes Rake and Shred to deal damage as if stealthed.
Taste for Blood changed to 2 ranks (was 3).
Infected Wounds now also increases Rake damage by 20%.
Berserk: Frenzy no longer causes combo point generating abilities to reduce the cooldown of Berserk.
Modal Cooldown Bonus is now Ashamane’s Guidance – Gives auto attacks a chance to trigger Incarnation for 6 seconds.
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Flash of Clarity – Clearcast Regrowths heal for an additional 30%.
New Talent: Waking Dream – Ysera’s Gift now heals every 4 seconds, and heals for an additional 5% for each of your active Rejuvenations.
New Talent: Nature’s Splendor – The healing bonus to Regrowth from Nature’s Swiftness is increased by 50%.
New Talent: Nurturing Dormancy – When your Rejuvenation heals a full health target, its duration is increased by 3 seconds, up to a maximum total increase of 9 seconds per cast.
New Talent: Dreamstate – While channeling Tranquility, your other Druid spell cooldowns are reduced by up to 10 seconds.
New Talent: Verdancy – When Lifebloom blooms, up to 3 targets within your Efflorescence are healed.
New Talent: Budding Leaves – Lifebloom’s healing is increased by 3/6% each time it heals, up to 45/90%. Also increases Lifebloom’s final bloom amount by 3/6%.
New Talent: Embrace of the Dream – Wild Growth has a 50/100% chance to momentarily shift your mind into the Emerald Dream, instantly healing all allies affected by your Rejuvenation.
New Talent: Regenerative Heartwood – Allies protected by your Ironbark also receive 75% of the healing from each of your active Rejuvenations.
Improved Lifebloom – Lifebloom counts for 2 stacks of Mastery: Harmony.
Invigorate – Your heal over time effects on the target complete 100% faster. 45 second cooldown.
Power of the Archdruid – Wild Growth has a 50% chance to cause your next Rejuvenation or Regrowth to apply to 3 additional allies within 20 yards of the target.
Unending Growth – Rejuvenation healing has a 1/2% chance to create a new Rejuvenation on a nearby target.
Undergrowth – You may Lifebloom two targets at once, but Lifebloom’s healing is reduced by 10%.
Reforestation – Every 3 casts of Swiftmend grants you Incarnation: Tree of Life for 9 seconds.
Verdant Infusion – Swiftmend no longer consumes a heal over time effect, and extends the duration of your heal over time effects on the target by 10 seconds.
Unstoppable Growth – Wild Growth’s healing falls off 20/40% less over time.
Ysera’s Gift now restores 3% health per 5 seconds by default.
Ready for Anything now reduces Nature’s Swiftness’s cooldown by 12 seconds.
Improved Regrowth now increases chance for a critical effect by 40% by default.
Inner Peace now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 60 seconds by default.
Stonebark now increases healing from your heal over time effects by 20% during Ironbark by default.
Improved Ironbark now reduces the cooldown of Ironbark by 20 seconds by default.
Ready for Anything is now a choice node with Nature’s Splendor.
Inner Peace is now a choice node with Dreamstate.
Improved Ironbark/Stonbark is now a choice node. Moved to row 7.
Photosynthesis is no longer a choice node with Undergrowth.
Autumn Leaves has been removed.
EVOKER
Starter builds now enabled.
Preservation
Rewind – Heal over time now scales with Haste.
Temporal Anomaly – Now works with Mastery: Life-Binder.
Cycle of Life – Counter should no longer go away when you die, and now lasts 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
Life-Giver’s Flame – Now only counts healing based on damage done to up to 5 targets.
Flow State – Now connects to Golden Hour in the talent tree.
HUNTER
Class Tree
Hunter’s Agility now reduces damage taken from area of effect attacks by 6% (was increases Avoidance).
Rejuvenating Winds and Improved Traps have swapped spots.
Scatter Shot is now usable with any weapon type. Survival uses a 1-hand special shot.
Binding Shot’s root effect can now break from taking damage.
Marksmanship
Windrunner’s Guidance has been redesigned – Every Wind Arrow shot has a 3% chance to grant you 10 seconds of Trueshot.
Survival
Ferocity lowered to 1 rank (was 2).
Intense Focus lowered to 1 rank (was 2).
PRIEST
General
Smite – Damage increased by 50% to offset the loss of Smite (Rank 2).
Class Tree
Rhapsody – Increases the healing done by Holy Nova by 20% per stack (was 10%).
Depth of the Shadows – Increases the healing done by your next Circle of Healing by 1% per stack, up to 50 stacks (was 2% per stack, up to 25 stacks).
Mindgames – No longer generates Mana or Insanity. Reversed damage and healing done reduced by 33%.
Halo – Fixed an issue where Halo was not dealing its maximum damage between 26-30 yards.
Power Word: Life – Renamed from Holy Word: Life to avoid confusion with Holy Word interactions.
Discipline
Corrected a missing connection between Empyreal Blaze and Searing Light.
Spirit Shell has been removed.
Exaltation no longer references Spirit Shell.
Shadow Covenant redesigned its functionality slightly – Make a shadowy pact, healing the target and 4 other injured allies within 30 yards. For 7 seconds, your Shadow spells deal 25% increased damage and healing, Shadow Mend has no cooldown, and Halo and Divine Star are converted to Shadow spells.
Holy
Slightly reorganized the middle of the tree.
Prayer of Healing – Mana cost reduced by 25%.
Healing Chorus – Increases the healing done by your next Circle of Healing by 1% per stack, up to 50 stacks (was 2% per stack, up to 25 stacks).
Prismatic Echoes – Increases the healing done by your Mastery: Echo of Light by 6%/12% (was 15%/30%).
New Talent: Divine Service – Prayer of Mending heals 4% more for each bounce remaining.
Shadow
Reorganized the top of the tree.
New Talent: Coalescing Shadows – Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Pain damage has a 4% chance to grant you Coalescing Shadows and Mind Flay has a 15% chance to grant you Coalescing Shadows, stacking up to 3 times. Mind Blast and Mind Spike consume all Coalescing Shadows to deal 20% increased damage per stack, and consuming at least 1 increases the damage of your periodic effects by 10% for 15 seconds.
New Talent: Puppet Master – Your Shadowfiend and Mindbender grant you Coalescing Shadows each time they deal damage. Damage from your Shadowy Apparitions has a 8% chance to grant you Coalescing Shadows.
New Talent: Harnessed Shadows – Increases the chance for you to gain a Coalescing Shadow when dealing damage with Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Pain by 2% and Mind Flay by 10%. You have a 100% chance to gain a Coalescing Shadow when critically hit by any attack. This effect can only occur every 6 seconds.
New Talent: Deathspeaker – Your Shadow Word: Pain damage has a chance to reset the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death and enable 150% additional damage regardless of the target’s health.
Painbreaker’s Psalm has been removed.
Pain of Death – Now a 2-point node. Increases the damage dealt by Shadow Word: Death by 13%/25%. Shadow Word: Death deals 10%/20% of its damage to all targets affected by your Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards.
Dark Ascension – Now generates 30 Insanity.
Pain of Death – Shadow Word: Death deals 20%/40% of its damage to all targets affected by Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards (was 10%/20%).
SHAMAN
Enhancement
Stormbringer is now a part of Mastery for Shaman.
New Talent: Storm’s Wrath – Increases the mastery bonus to Stormbringer and Windfury’s chance to trigger by 100%. Replaces Stormbringer.
Lava Lash (Rank 2) renamed to Molten Assault.
A bunch of talent nodes moved around on the right-hand side of rows 4-8
Improved Maelstrom Weapon is now a 2-rank node. Damage increased by 10% per rank.
Focused Maelstrom has been removed.
Raging Maelstrom now also increases damage and healing by an additional 5% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.
Lashing Flames has returned as a talent node on row 7.
Feral Spirits and Elemental Spirits have been slightly adjusted:
Each wolf type grants you 15% increased damage to the related element. Base wolves count as physical.
Alpha Wolf now triggers from Chain Lightning or Crash Lightning.
Alpha Wolf’s attack (Spirit Bomb) is now physical and ignores armor (was Nature damage).
Spirit Bomb damage increased by 50%.
Legacy of the Frost Witch has been redesigned – Every 10 Maelstrom Weapon stacks consumed resets the cooldown of Stormstrike and grants you 5/20% increased Physical damage dealt for 5 seconds.
WARLOCK
General
Spell Lock has been removed from the talent tree and returned to the Felhunter.
Demonic Circle has been moved to row 1 and is granted freely.
Abyss Walker has been moved to row 3.
Demonology
Borne of Blood and Shadow’s Bite have swapped places.
Nerzhul’s Volition has been updated – When Nether Portal summons a demon, it has a 15/30% chance to summon an additional demon.
Gul’dan’s Ambition has been updated – When Nether Portal ends, you summon a Pit Lord that gains power based on how many demons you summoned, up to 20 demons, while Nether Portal was active. The Pit Lord lasts for 10 seconds.
WARRIOR
Class Developer Notes
We’ve made some changes to stances; each specialization now only has one damage-based stance available to them. We might revisit this and their specific functionality later, but for now, we want players to have the intended experience when playing in the Beta and that is that Arms uses Battle Stance and Fury uses Berserker Stance and you can opt into defensive stance when you’re expecting heavy incoming damage.
There’s some under the hood changes related to auto-attack tuning that lead to the increases and reductions you’ll see.
Class Tree
Battle Stance is no longer available in the Fury class tree and Berserker Stance is no longer available in the Arms or Protection class trees.
Sidearm has been removed from the Fury tree and is now located in the class tree. There were too many talents in the Fury tree, and we feel this is a cool ability that all specs can make use of.
Fast Footwork now increases movement speed by 10% (was 5%).
New Talent: Uproar – Thunderous Roar’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds to better align it with various cooldowns.
Thunderous Roar’s direct damage reduced to 160% (was 175%).
Memory of a Tormented Warlord changed to the following – Activating Avatar or Colossus Smash casts Recklessness at reduced effectiveness.
Armored to the Teeth has changed position and is now 2 ranks. The Strength granted from Armor is up to 5% per rank (was 3%).
Shockwave and Thunderous Roar now have 110-degree cones (was 90 degrees) to allow for a little more error in targeting and to better align with visuals.
Ranks of Cruel Strikes for all specs should now work correctly.
All version of Sudden Death and Massacre have now returned to the specialization trees.
New Talent: Wrenching Impact – Heroic Leap pulls 5 random enemies within 15 yards to you. The cooldown of Heroic Leap will be increased in a future build to compensate for this powerful effect.
Berserker Stance – Auto attacks now deal 10% more damage (was 5%).
Reinforced Plates is now 1 rank and now increases Armor by 20% (was 15%).
Endurance Training is now 1 point and now grants 15% reduction to crowd-control effects.
Endurance Training Arms and Endurance Training Protection – Now also reduces the effectiveness of Sap, Fear and Incapacitate effects by 15%.
Endurance Training Fury – Now also reduces the effectiveness of movement impairing effects by 15%.
Arms Developer Notes
We’ve changed the pathing and location of various nodes so that Colossus Smash is located in the center of the tree to align with its importance to the Arms specialization.
Punishment – We’ve decided to remove Punishment as a talent. Execute damage can make up a very large portion of Arms specialization’s damage, which we like, want to maintain and want players to be able to choose! However, having your target in Execute range for 50% of the fight warps the original intent and identity of the ability. It also means Execute will need to be largely toned down and provide less general output than we’d like when it is intended to be used. When you press Execute, we want it to hit hard and feel good, we want you to see big numbers and even bigger crits, and some constraints here, such as removing Punishment will allow us to better deliver on that.
We’re feeling good about where Arms is at and we’ve seen people enjoying the playstyles throughout the Alpha and Beta, so our focus for Arms is now on tuning, bugs and minor changes.
Arms
Improved Sweeping Strikes removed.
Fatality was not providing enough damage output during testing, so now deals 200% damage per stack (was 100%).
Blunt Instruments no longer gives an additional benefit to Warbreaker as it is now part of a choice node with Warbreaker.
Gathering Storm renamed to Hurricane.
Exploiter should now be functioning correctly outside of the Shadowlands and has been reduced to 25% per stack (was 50%).
In for the Kill now increases your Haste by 10% and by 25% if the target is under 35% health.
Test of Might now grants 5% increased Strength for every 30 Rage spent (was 1% every 10 Rage).
Battlelord now also applies to Cleave.
Fatal Mark can now also be applied via Cleave.
Sharpened Blades now also applies to Cleave.
Exhilarating Blows now also applies to Cleave.
Rend caused by Blood and Thunder no longer increases stacks of Collateral Damage.
Moved Exploit the weakness to a later part of the tree where its power level is more in line with other talents.
Skullsplitter now generates 30 Rage.
With Storm of Swords talented Whirlwind’s cooldown is now reduced by your Haste.
Overpower’s damage reduced to 90% (was 97%).
Juggernaut now has a cap of 15 stacks.
Execute damage reduced to 220% (was 230%).
Arms auto attack damage reduced by 5%.
Battlelord chance to trigger reduced to 25% (was 30%) but the rage reduction applied to Mortal Strike has increased to 15 (was 10).
Critical Thinking now provides 5% Execute Critical Strike damage per rank (was 3%).
Fury Developer Notes
Titan’s Grip Fury builds are suffering a little from having more abilities than we’d like and are feeling a little bloated in comparison to other Fury and Arms builds.
With the above in mind, we’ve removed Siegebreaker and its follow-on node Deafening Crash. Historically this ability has not been well liked by players and has felt like a weaker version of Colossus Smash, it can also blur the identity and playstyles of Arms and Fury a little more than we’d like and removing it will allow us to put more power into Fury’s core abilities.
As mentioned previously we’re looking at opening Annihilator up to two-handed weapons.
The choice nodes for Odyn’s Fury and Ravager may see some more iteration.
Outside of the above-mentioned points, we are generally happy with where Fury is at and have seen people enjoying the updates to playstyle and abilities throughout the Alpha and Beta, in turn our focus for Fury will now be mostly on tuning, bugs and minor changes.
Fury
Removed Siegebreaker and Deafening Crash talents.
Unbridled Ferocity now has a 20% chance to trigger Recklessness (was 10%).
Frenzied Flurry is now 1 Rank and increases auto attack damage by 5% and your auto attack critical strikes have a 50% chance to enrage you.
Haste no longer reduces the cooldown of Odyn’s Fury.
New Talent: Dancing Blades – Odyn’s Fury increases your auto-attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds.
Gathering Storm renamed to Hurricane.
Cruelty is now 1 rank and increases damage by 15% and chance to reset the cooldown of Raging Blow by 30%.
Bloodborne now increases your Bleed damage by 30%.
Vicious contempt now increases damage dealt by Bloodthirst by 25% per rank (was 20%).
Cold Steel Hot Blood now deals 30% damage (was 20%).
Crushing Blow damage reduced to 90% for both main hand and offhand damage (was 94%).
Raging Blow damage reduced to 58% for both main hand and offhand damage (was 61%).
Meat Cleaver is now 1 rank and has 4 charges, deals 25% increased damage for Whirlwind.
Annihilator should correctly generate Rage from each rank of Swift Strikes.
Removed Wrath and Fury and replaced it with Massacre which is no longer present on the core tree.
Odyn’s Fury should now add to the duration if quickly cast within succession in line with other Bleed effects.
Odyn’s Fury’s periodic damage should now correctly be flagged as a Bleed effect.
Cruel Strikes now applies to Annihilator correctly.
Storm of Swords – Slam’s cooldown is now 12 seconds and damage increased by 200%. It also generates 20 Rage.
When using Storm of Swords, Whirlwind’s cooldown is now modified by your Haste.
New Talent: Ashen Juggernaut – Execute increases the critical strike chance of Execute by 10% for 12 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
Memory of a Tormented Titan should now trigger Odyn’s Fury without incurring its cooldown.
Fury should now only have 1 form of Execute in their spell book.
Protection Developer Notes
Protection will see a larger update next week and the week following.
We’ve made some quality-of-life changes to target cones to make them a little more forgiving and to better align with visuals.
Protection
Devastate should now be baseline at the specialization level and no longer require a talent point.
Removed Never Surrender and replaced it with Skull Banner.
Revenge has a 110-degree cone (was 90 degrees) to allow for a little more error in targeting and to better align with visuals.
New Talent: Storm of Steel – Ravager’s damage is reduced by 50% but it now has 2 charges.
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
CLASSES
DEATH KNIGHT
Rot and Wither – Now available for all Death Knight specializations (was Blood only).
Necrotic Aura – Now available for all Death Knight specializations (was Unholy only).
Chill Streak – Removed as a PvP talent (moved into the talent tree).
DEMON HUNTER
Cover of Darkness – Now available for both Demon Hunter specializations (was Havoc only).
Rain from Above – Now available for both Demon Hunter specializations (was Havoc only).
Glimpse – Now available for both Demon Hunter specializations (was Havoc only).
Sigil Mastery – Now available for both Demon Hunter specializations (was Vengeance only).
DRUID
Malorne’s Swiftness – Now available for all Druid specializations (was Feral and Guardian only).
Reactive Resin – Now available for all Druid specializations (was Restoration only).
Reactive Resin’s triggered heal is at 75% effectiveness for Guardian, Feral, and Balance.
MAGE
Torment the Weak has been removed.
Burst of Cold has been removed.
ROGUE
Veil of Midnight – Now available for all Rogue specializations (was Subtlety only).
Control is King – Now available for all Rogue specializations (was Outlaw only).
Flying Daggers – Removed as a PvP talent (moved into the talent tree).
Intent to Kill – Removed as a PvP talent (moved into the talent tree).
Float Like a Butterfly – Removed as a PvP talent (moved into the talent tree).
SHAMAN
Traveling Storms – Now available for all Shaman specializations (was Elemental only).
Traveling Storms has been redesigned – Thunderstorm now can be cast on allies within 40 yards, reducing enemies movement speed by 60% and knocks enemies 25% further. Thundershock knocks enemies 100% higher.
Tidebringer – Now available for all Shaman specializations (was Restoration only).
Lightning Lasso – Removed as a PvP talent (moved into the talent tree).
PROFESSIONS
ENCHANTING
In this Beta build, Enchanting has been enabled and players are able to learn the profession by visiting Enchanting trainers in the Dragon Isles. In addition to feedback on the recipes and new items from the profession, we’re also particularly interested in feedback on the new weapon enchantment effects.
FISHING
Fishing has been enabled on Beta! Players can now learn Fishing from Profession trainers all throughout Dragon Isles, and are able to fish in all of the zones.
SPECIALIZATIONS
Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.
ENCHANTING
Enchantment – Improve at understanding magical properties and their applications, gaining +1 Skill per point in this Specialization.
Primal – Learn to harness the primal elements of the Dragon Isles, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this Specialization.
Material Manipulation – Improve at modifying equipment for your every need, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this Specialization.
USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY
NEW HUD UI
Unit frame art updated
Player Unit frame
Common frames and panel: edges, top bar, and “x” button.
Developers’ note: Known issue with some “x” buttons bleeding out of the frame.
Last night we got another set of hotfixes that focus on nerfing the Lower Karazhan Opera Hall boss encounters. In addition to that Blizzard provided us with some update notes coming to dragonriding on the beta in one of the next builds.
Developers’ note: The Opera events in Lower Karazhan have proven to be more lethal than we’d like, particularly given the weekly rotation that makes them more challenging to master in Mythic+. We’ve made a number of adjustments here in hopes of bringing the difficulty of these events in line with our expectations.
The Opera Hall: Beautiful Beast
Silver Forks health reduced by 50%.
Silver Forks Bloody Jab damage over time reduced by 50%.
Mrs. Cauldrons’ Soup Spray damage reduced by 30%.
Luminore’s Heat Wave damage reduced by 30%.
The Opera Hall: Westfall Story
Gang Ruffian’s Poisonous Shank damage over time reduced by 50%.
Mrrgria’s Thunder Ritual damage reduced by 30%.
The Opera Hall: Wikket
Winged Assistant’s health reduced by 25%.
Winged Assistant’s Throw “Stuff” damage reduced by 30%.
A couple updates coming in an upcoming build that warranted pointing out:
The text in the tooltips for dragon isle drakes have been corrected to state more accurate values. NOTE: Actual maximum speed values have not changed from the previous build.
For those that need or want a quieter full screen effect for max speed, the accessibility option “Alternate Full Screen Effects” now lessens the dragonriding max speed effect. Please try this out and share your feedback.
Surge Forward’s effectiveness has been increased by 20%.
Last night in addition to a couple of hotfixes in retail, Blizzard posted a lot of responses on the DF Beta class feedback threads! Check it out below:
Resolved an issue where Creation Spark (Fated Power) could negatively affect the duration of Unstable Mote.
Resolved an issue where Fated Powers could occur twice at the start of the encounter.
Resolved an issue where damage taken from the Fated Powers Creation Spark, Reconfiguration Emitter, Chaotic Essence, and Protoform Barrier could be incidentally increased by Protoform Radiance.
Resolved an issue that could cause Fated Powers to spawn inside Unstable Motes.
The Jailer
Resolved an issue which could cause Fated Powers to spawn inside Defile.
Mythic+
Grimrail Depot
Railmaster Rocketspark
Explosives will no longer spawn on top of crates.
Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Classes
Weapon trail visual effects have been restored to abilities that have them.
Dungeons and Raids
Blackrock Spire can again be entered by 10-player raids.
Resolved an issue where selecting certain roles for your class in the Group Finder would not actually display them in your listing.
Fixed an issue where Group Finder listings would be removed for certain players when moving between zones.
Fixed an issue where the Talent Specialization’s role could be set to tank after changing zones.
Developers’ note: The intention here is that this role selection should always default to DPS, and can be set by players based on how they want to describe their talent builds.
Items and Rewards
Fixed an issue that prevented the auction of some items carried over from Burning Crusade Classic.
Player versus Player
Updated the current Battleground Bonus Weekend to Warsong Gulch (was Strand of the Ancients).
Random Battleground Queue no longer shows up for players below level 80.
Fixed a crash when inspecting another player and opening the PvP tab.
Quests
For the quest “Runeforging: Preparation for Battle,” Instructor Razuvious will now (begrudgingly) provide a spare Runed Soulblade for Death Knights who have managed to misplace theirs.
This is a concern we’ve heard echoed from many sources and have been thinking about as well. When it is one legendary choice among many and contained to a limited window of time as with the Shadowlands version, the divergent rotational gameplay required by it can be novel and appropriate. But we are less comfortable carrying that gameplay forward as a more permanent talent choice, and will be testing a slightly modified talent version of Burning Wound that intends to streamline gameplay and solidify an identity as an effect that is at its best in low target count scenarios.
So, the following adjustments are currently planned (and as always, are subject to change):
Burning Wound DoT applied by Throw Glaive (was Demon’s Bite)
Burning Wound DoT damage reduced by 25%
Immolation Aura bonus damage on Wounded targets reduced to 45% (was 65%)
May be applied to a maximum of 3 targets
This updated talent version will be available for testing in a future update, and we’re hoping you’ll try it out and let us know what you think. Cheers.
Some quick notes on changes coming in a future build:
Class Tree:
Hunter’s Agility is being changed from a 2-rank node down to 1 rank, and will reduce area of effect damage taken by 6%.
Improved Traps and Rejuvenating Winds will have their positions switched.
Note on Arctic Bola: The snare value is 20%, and should not be changing per rank, the tooltip showing 50/100% snare per rank is incorrect. This is not intended to be a big snare or something you are relying on to kite enemies around.
Marksmanship:
Windrunner’s Guidance is having its design changed to: Each Wind Arrow has a 3% chance to grant you 10 sec of Trueshot.
This includes Wind Arrows from either Aimed Shot, or from Windrunner’s Barrage below Wailing Arrow.
Survival:
Ferocity lowered from 2 ranks down to 1.
Intense Focus lowered from 2 ranks down to 1.
Thanks for your continued feedback and testing.
P.S. I hope you all have a nice weekend every week, even if I don’t post that here.
Some changes are coming to a build you will receive next week, and we wanted to discuss that here.
Stormbringer is now just something you know starting at level 10 as an Enhancement Shaman alongside your Mastery.
New 1-point talent in Stormbringer’s Spot: Storm’s Wrath. Increases the mastery bonus chance for Stormbringer and Windfury to activate by 100%. This is a multiplier, not additive.
Note, this only increases the bonus proc chance from Mastery, which is 0.64% without any gear, and does not affect the elemental damage bonus from Mastery.
Improved Maelstrom Weapon is now a 2 rank node, up from 1, for the same total benefit.
Focused Maelstrom has been removed.
Raging Maelstrom now increases the damage bonus to Maelstrom Weapon by an additional 5% in addition to increasing maximum stacks by 5.
A fair number of talents in rows 4-8 on the right side of the tree have shifted around in position.
Lashing Flames has added as a talent on the right side of the tree.
Alpha Wolf now procs from either Crash Lightning or Chain Lightning, rather than just Chain Lightning.
Legacy of the Frost Witch has had its design adjusted a bit and is still 2 ranks: Every 10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon consumed resets the cooldown of Stormstrike and increases the damage of your physical abilities by 5%/20% for 5 sec.
Feral Spirits, and the Elemental Spirits talent have been adjusted:
Each Feral Spirit type now grants you +15% damage to the related element. Normal Feral Spirits count as Physical.
The extra frost damage from the frosty feral spirits has been removed, but frosty feral spirits now increase your frost damage by 15%.
The extra Lava Lash damage from fire feral spirits has been removed.
Greetings, Feral Druids! We’re excited to share that there is a new version of the Feral tree in the next Beta update. These are some meaty changes you can really sink your claws into, with new talents, lots of revisions, and changes to the tree layout. Here’s some of what we’re intending with these changes.
Identity
At its core, Feral’s gameplay is about applying and maintaining powerful bleeds on enemies, then spending additional combo points on Ferocious Bites for more damage. In 9.2.5, Ferocious Bite is extremely powerful (and extends Rips with Sabertooth), which can lead to it taking over your rotation. Our goal for this tree is to get back to bleeds, especially Rip, being the center of your damage and gameplay again, with Ferocious Bite adding additional damage when you have the combo points for it. We’ve changed or removed any effects that dynamically extend bleed duration, so maintaining bleeds will always be a part of your rotation.
We’ve added several options to make Bleeds more interesting or useful in different situations. Primal Wrath has been moved near the top of the tree to give Feral an AOE combo point spender early. There are also new talents to do things like briefly increase all Rip damage, consume part of Rip’s duration to deal some of its damage instantly, or make Ferocious Bite hit nearby bleeding targets. These new tools should also enable you to get full value out of every combo point in AOE combat.
We’ve also returned a lot of Berserk’s current power to the first point you spend in it, while keeping some additional talents to make it stronger (and adding some new ones).
Complexity
We pay a lot of attention to gameplay complexity. Feral has some talents that increase the complexity of its rotation in exchange for power. The challenge with these types of abilities, especially in Dragonflight’s talent trees, is that if they’re strong, they can feel required. In the case of Bloodtalons and Brutal Slash, we added alternatives for players who want most of the power without the complexity. In the case of Savage Roar, we removed it. We prefer Feral’s combo point spenders to focus on maintaining bleeds and weaving in Ferocious Bites when possible.
Choice
Many of the new talents are about giving Feral players tools to customize their gameplay in the direction they prefer. There are, of course, talents that strengthen AOE or single target damage (though you should always feel capable in both scenarios). But other options allow you to customize how much energy regeneration you have, how powerful your combo point builders are, how often you need to refresh your bleeds, or how powerful your Berserk & Tiger’s Fury cooldowns are.
We’re excited to hear your feedback on these changes and for you to have an opportunity to play them. Here’s what’s coming:
Protective Growth. New talent, row 2. Your Regrowth protects you, reducing all damage you take by 3% while it is on you.
Improved Bleeds. Changed to 1 rank (from 2).
Pouncing Strikes. New talent, row 3. Grants extra damage & combo points to Shred & Rake when striking from stealth.
Tireless Energy. Renamed from Max Energy, changed to 2 ranks (from 3) and grants 2% haste per rank.
Sabertooth. Now increases Ferocious Bite damage by 20% and increases damage dealt by Rip by 4% for each combo point spent for 4 seconds.
Piercing Claws (2 ranks). New talent, row 4. Critical Strike chance increased by 2%.
Double-Clawed Rake. New talent, row 4. Rake also applies Rake to 1 additional nearby target.
Sudden Ambush. Changed to 2 ranks (from 3) and grants 5% chance to strike as if from stealth per rank (up from 1%).
Dreadful Bleeding. New talent, row 5. Rip damage increased by 15%.
Berserk. Replaces Berserk: Relentlessness. Berserk now grants combo point refund on finishing moves and causes Rake & Shred to deal damage as if stealthed.
Tear Open Wounds. New talent, row 5. Primal Wrath consumes up to 4 sec of Rip damage on targets it hits and deals 75% of it instantly.
Taste for Blood. Changed to 2 ranks (from 3).
Ferocious Frenzy. New talent, row 6. Ferocious Bite also hits nearby enemies within 8 yds afflicted by Rip for 25% damage. Deals reduced damage over 8 targets.
Infected Wounds. Now also increases Rake damage by 20%.
Row 7 choice node:
Raging Fury. New talent. Finishing moves extend the duration of Tiger’s Fury by 0.2 sec per combo point spent.
Frantic Momentum. New talent. Finishing moves have a 3% chance per combo point spent to grant 10% Haste for 6 seconds.
Berserk: Heart of the Lion. New talent, row 7. Each combo point spent reduces the cooldown of Berserk by 0.5 seconds.
Berserk: Frenzy. No longer causes combo point generating abilities to reduce the cooldown of Berserk.
Wild Slashes. New talent, row 7, choice node with Brutal Slash. Swipe and Thrash deal 20% more damage.
Bite Force. New talent, row 9, choice node with Bloodtalons. Ferocious Bite and Rip deal +10% damage.
Row 9 choice node:
Veinripper. New talent. Rip & Rake & Thrash last +25% longer
Rip & Tear. New talent. Applying Rip to a target also applies a Tear that deals X Bleed damage per combo point spent over 6 sec.
Feral Frenzy and Apex Predator are now standalone talents.
Ashamane’s Guidance. Was Modal Cooldown Bonus. Gives auto attacks a chance to trigger Incarnation for 6 sec, or reduces Convoke the Spirits’ duration by 25% and gives it an increased chance to trigger a powerful ability.
Removed Talents
Improved Tiger’s Fury. Tiger’s Fury now always grants 50 Energy.
And hello, Restoration Druids! A new Restoration tree will be sprouting into the next Beta build with spell changes, layout adjustments, multi-point node reduction, and new abilities! Players can also expect many previously Not Yet Implemented (NYI) talents to be ready for testing. We would like to give our thoughts on some of these upcoming adjustments.
Build Diversity and Support
A good amount of feedback for the Restoration Druid tree has been it felt very similar to the current Shadowlands build and there weren’t many variations to playstyle throughout the tree. To open build diversity we’ve focused on adding new tools to existing builds to change their gameplay and creating spells to support new playstyles. Lifebloom, for example, is seeing more talents throughout this tree now.
Mastery Mattering
Restoration Druid’s Mastery is a very compelling stat, but generally does not have a lot of areas of the game where it gets to shine. We are looking at old bonuses and new effects to incorporate Mastery further into the spec and give players more reason to think about their Heal over Time placement as they parse their group’s damage intake.
Layout Changes
The layout of the Restoration Druid tree has changed significantly from its previous iteration. The new layout is intended to provide more options and improved pathing. Here’s what players can expect to see:
New Talent Additions
Nature’s Splendor. New Talent, row 3. The healing bonus to Regrowth from Nature’s Swiftness is increased by 50%.
Flash of Clarity. New Talent, row 3. Clearcast Regrowths heal for an additional 30%.
Waking Dream. New Talent, row 4. Ysera’s Gift now heals every 4 seconds and heals for an additional 5% for each of your active Rejuvenations.
Nurturing Dormancy. New Talent, row 6. When your Rejuvenation heals a full health target, its duration is increased by 3 seconds, up to a maximum total increase of 9 seconds per cast.
Dreamstate. New Talent, row 6. While channeling Tranquility, your other Druid spell cooldowns are reduced by up to 10 seconds.
Verdancy. New Talent, row 7. When Lifebloom blooms, up to 3 targets within your Efflorescence are healed for X.
Budding Leaves. New Talent, row 9. Lifebloom’s Healing is increased by 6% each time it heals, up to 90%. Also increases Lifebloom’s final bloom amount by 15%.
Embrace of the Dream. New Talent, row 9. Wild Growth has a 100% chance to momentarily shift your mind into the Emerald Dream, instantly healing all allies affected by your Rejuvenation for X.
Regenerative Heartwood. New Talent, row 9. Allies protected by your Ironbark also receive 75% of the healing from each of your active Rejuvenations.
The complete list of changes will be released with the next beta build. Thanks so much for your continued feedback!
While the DF Beta hype machine is buzzing, retail is still getting some development as well. We’ve got a new round of hotfixes that include even more nerfs for Karazhan Lower.
Resolved an issue causing Earthbreaker Missiles to erupt at the wrong time when the target is affected by Creation Spark (Fated Power).
Mythic+
Grimrail Depot
Grimrail Bombardier’s Double Slash will no longer be cast on a nearby target if their current target is out of range.
Iron Docks
Thunderlord Wrangler’s Serrated Spear can now correctly be removed by effects that clear bleeds.
Skulloc
Koramar’s Berserker Leap will no longer target pets and will no longer hit players multiple times.
Operation Mechagon: Junkyard
Saurolisk Bonenipper’s Ripping Slash will no longer be cast on a nearby target if their current target is out of range and will no longer remove Welding Bot’s Reinforced from players.
Operation Mechagon: Workshop
Defense Bot Mk III no longer detects stealth.
Return from Karazhan: Lower
Ghostly Philanthropist’s Pennies From Heaven will no longer break players from stealth.
The Opera Hall: Beautiful Beast
Coggleston’s Dent Armor now increases damage taken by 25% (was 50%).
The Opera Hall: Westfall Story
Increased the cooldown on Toe Knee’s Dashing Flame Gale to 35 seconds (was 20 seconds).
Resolved an issue that could cause Toe Knee to cast Dashing Flame Gale multiple times on a player if they had a spell active that provided immunity.
The Opera Hall: Wikket
Resolved an issue that could cause Galindre to leave Elfyra to fend for herself when the encounter was reset.
Attumen the Huntsman
Midnight’s Stamp will no longer be cast on a nearby target if their current target is out of range.
Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Items and Rewards
Resolved an issue preventing Smelt Titansteel from triggering a cooldown as intended.
Resolved an issue preventing Create Mooncloth, Create Ebonweave, and Create Spellweave from requiring the proper location and from triggering a cooldown, as intended.
Resolved an issue where Ethereal Essence Sphere, Paper Flying Machine, and the Paper Zeppelin would fail to show up in a player’s bags after being thrown to them.
Quests
Resolved an issue that sometimes caused the player to not mount the carpet during the “Magic Carpet Ride” quest.
The Dragonflight Beta officially begins today! In addition to the last new dungeon and Vengeance Demon Hunters being available, multiple classes have gotten a ton of talent changes, the new UI has further been implemented, PvP gets talent updates + a new arena and herbalism has been enabled!
Blizzard also released an official preview for the changes coming to the default UI so check all the new information out below!
The World of Warcraft®: Dragonflight beta test begins today! Over the course of the test, we’ll be inviting community veterans, press, fansites, and friends and family to check out the upcoming expansion and give us feedback.
Players selected to participate* will receive an email invitation directing them to download the game client directly from the Battle.net desktop app. 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 Dragonflight beta license attached (under Your Game Accounts).
Getting Started
If you’d like to join us in testing Dragonflight, all you need to do is opt in to become a tester. Players who have opted-in can be selected to be a tester, and invitations will go out regularly throughout the test. If you’ve been selected to participate in the beta test, your Battle.net account will already be flagged for access.
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 Dragonflight Beta (listed under In Development) option, then click Install.
Allow installation to complete, click Play and select any of the available Test Servers.
Create a new test character or use the character copy to import your existing Shadowlands character.
New systems, the complete leveling experience, zones, dungeons, and the new playable Dracthyr Evokers are all available in the beta. Raid testing will come at a later time. To read more about these and other changes, head over to the patch notes. To help keep you informed, we’ve rounded up our latest preview articles.
Zone Preview: Ohn’ahran Plains
Explore the Ohn’ahran Plains, a verdant region filled with sweeping plateaus, mesas, groves, and valleys abundant with life. [LEARN MORE]
Zone Preview: Thaldraszus
Journey to Thaldraszus, an ancient region once the seat of power for the Aspects. [LEARN MORE]
City Preview: Valdrakken
A shining treasure within Thaldraszus, Valdrakken is a testament to the power of cooperation between all the dragonflights. [LEARN MORE]
Zone Preview: The Waking Shores
Explore the Waking Shores, a wild land teeming with elemental magic. [LEARN MORE]
Zone Preview: The Azure Span
Traverse and explore the snowy peaks, misty forests, and icy tundra of the Azure Span. [LEARN MORE]
Preview: Dungeons
Face new challenges and adventures in the Dragon Isles with four new level-up dungeons and four maximum-level dungeons. [LEARN MORE]
Preview: Dracthyr Evoker
Meet the new dracthyr race and learn more about the new class—the Evoker—as we take you into who they are and what they are all about [LEARN MORE]
Preview: Professions
More on the new profession updates and some of the new crafting stations and equipment becoming available in Dragonflight. [LEARN MORE]
Dragonriding and You
Master a new skill and learn how to make the most of your Dragon Isles Drakes in Dragonflight. [LEARN MORE]
Get ready for a fresh-looking Heads-Up Display (HUD), and User Interface (UI) revamp designed to be adjustable, effective, attractive, and easily accessible.
With the Dragonflight update, we’re making sweeping changes to World of Warcraft’s HUD and UI from the ground up. Our aim is to provide a clutter-free layout and allow players to customize their HUD to better fit their individual needs.
A Whole New Look
Technology has advanced since we first developed the UI in 2004. We now have more tools at our fingertips to create and improve quality-of-life features. We wanted to modernize the appearance of the player’s layout and view while maintaining the original design’s charm and personality. And there is no better time to deliver these changes than with the release of Dragonflight.
Right away, players will immediately notice the more apparent changes. For instance, the minimap and health bar are more prominent, and we’ve removed some clutter to provide greater viewable space. Also, while keeping to the iconic design, we’ve cleaned up the appearance of the Action Bar. We also added a fresh set of Gryphons and created Wyverns for our Horde-loving heroes. There’s also a new look for the loot and inventory display, and players can use Combined Backpack functionality to help them find and organize their inventory items more quickly.
Make It Your Own
Welcome to Edit mode. With Edit mode, you will now have the ability to tweak, personalize, and move (almost) anything anywhere to your heart’s desire. Not only are various elements of the HUD movable, but each individual component has a variety of options to help you get everything just right.
Once you set everything set how you like it, you’ll be able to name, save, edit, copy, and share it with the community. And, for those that change specs often, the feature is designed to remember which specialization you’re in. As you switch between specs, the feature will remember the HUD layout you have for that spec and change accordingly.
Will this new feature replace the ability to use third-party add-ons entirely? Not at all. We recognize that add-ons provide many opportunities for players to customize their experience, but not all players utilize them. However, with the help of our user research team, we are working to meet our community’s needs. We include elements that some add-ons provide to the base UI. Those who wish to can continue using the add-ons they like.
Improved Accessibility to Make Things Easier
Improving accessibility features for our players is at the forefront of much of the design of the new UI and providing ways for players to have a better experience is vital. Here are some of the changes that we’ve been working on to help improve accessibility for players:
New Option: Press and Hold Casting – When enabled, the player can press and hold a keyboard hotkey to continually cast a spell on an Action Bar without repeatedly pressing the button.
New Feature: Interact Key – Pressing the Interact Key will enable you to interact with NPCs and objects with a key press instead of a mouse click. Interactive NPCs and objects will gain an icon above their heads as you move close enough to interact.
New Targeting System: Action Combat – This feature works alongside the standard targeting features and automatically targets enemies as you approach them. This will allow you to start casting abilities immediately and dynamically switch between targets based on where you’re looking.
Looking Ahead
Refining the UI is an ongoing project; we want to continue to make changes and improvements. In addition to polishing the current set of available features, we intend to tackle many other UI elements and include more features further down the line, like:
Additional Edit Mode options
Group Manager
Raid Frames
Quest Tracker
And more updates to the art
We’ll have more information and details on these and other features as we move toward the launch of Dragonflight. We look forward to getting your feedback as you experience all these changes and more.
Hello everyone! Take a look at what you can find in this week’s Dragonflight Beta update:
NEW DUNGEONS
Algeth’ar Academy
All Dragonflight dungeons are now available.
CHARACTER LEVEL
All player-characters have been deleted for testing purposes. Please copy or create a new character to continue testing.
CLASSES
NEW TALENT SYSTEM
SAVED ACTION BARS
By default, each Talent loadout will now have its own saved set of action bars. However, if you would like certain loadouts to share the same action bars, there is a loadout option called “Use shared action bars.” All loadouts that have this option enabled will share the same action bars.
TALENT SEARCH
There is now a search bar in the new Talent UI. Players can search for specific spells, talents, or words, and any matches will be highlighted on the UI. It will also highlight talents that don’t directly match the search term, but are related to the searched talent (E.g. searching for “tidal waves” will also highlight Riptide, Healing Wave, and Healing Surge since they are mentioned in Tidal Waves’ description).
INSPECTING
Inspecting another player now offers a button to open their talent trees.
LOADOUT SHARING
Players can now share loadout talent builds with each other. To share your current loadout with another player of your same specialization, players can click the Share button in the Loadout dropdown. This will copy a series of letters and numbers that can be shared with other players. To import a talent loadout, players can click the Import Loadout button in the same dropdown to paste the talent loadout text.
We hope that this feature makes it easier for players to share talent loadouts with their friends and members of their communities.
DEATH KNIGHT
General
Death’s Advance is now learned at level 9.
Lichborne is now learned at level 9.
Class Tree
Developers’ note: The Death Knight core tree is being updated to better increase talent choice. In order to do this, we’ve made several abilities baseline and cut talents that were proving to be problematic for the overall health of the resource economy for the specs. The left side of the class tree had 4 talents all dedicated to resources, which felt a little excessive. This has been reduced 2 (specifics noted below). In addition to the resource talents being shifted around, we’ve also made Death’s Advance and Lichborne baseline.
Unholy Endurance – Now positioned where Lichborne was previously located in the talent tree.
New Talent: March of Darkness – Death’s Advance grants additional movement speed over the first 3 seconds. Now positioned where Death’s Advance was previously located in the talent tree.
Horn of Winter – Cut from the class tree. This will return as a Frost talent.
New Talent: Insidious Chill – Your auto-attacks reduce the target’s auto-attack speed by 5% for 30 seconds, stacking up to 4 times. Positioned where Horn of Winter was located.
Runic Corruption and Runic Empowerment – This choice node has been removed. These two talents will be returning to their respective specs baseline (Unholy – Runic Corruption and Frost – Runic Empowerment).
Runic Attenuation – Now positioned where the Runic Corruption/Runic Empowerment node was located.
New Talent: Gloom Ward – Absorbs are 15% more effective on you.
Blood
The talent tree for Blood has undergone significant updates to its pathing and connections.
Blood Boil – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
Improved Blood Boil removed.
Rune Tap – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
Improved Heart Strike – Reduced to 2 max ranks (was 3). Damage per rank increased to 15% (was 10%).
Blood Fortification – Removed from the talent tree. Now learned at level 11.
Everlasting Bond – Death Strike and Heart Strike no longer increase the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon. Now increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 1 second.
Developers’ note: While the act of extending your Dancing Rune Weapon with Heart Strike and Death Strike can be fun it quickly can overshadow the rest of Blood’s kit making any other abilities used within that window the wrong choice. In an order to address this we will be changing Everlasting Bond to be a flat duration increase in addition to its existing mechanic of summoning one extra copy of Dancing Rune Weapon. Our goal here is to open up more options throughout the tree as well as not make one style of gameplay feel mandatory permanently moving forward.
Improved Boneshield – Reduced to 1 max rank (was 2). Now increases Haste by 10% while Bone Shield is active.
Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Marrowrend.
Improved Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Vampiric Blood
Death’s Caress – Now available above the first gate.
Dancing Rune Weapon – This has moved higher into the tree and is available immediately after unlocking the 1st gate.
Hemostasis – Max ranks reduced to 1(was 2).
Hasty Bargain – Renamed to Perseverance of the Ebon Blade. Now grants 3/6% Versatility when Crimson Scourge is consumed (was Haste).
Voracious and Bloodworms are no longer a choice node.
Gorefiend’s Grasp – Now centrally located within the tree with multiple pathing options to reach it.
Tightening Grasp – Can now only be obtained directly after Gorefiend’s Grasp. Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
Heartrend – Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
Shatterning Bone – Damage now correctly scales with rank upgrades.
New Talent: Blood Feast – Anti-Magic Shell heals you for 100% of the damage it absorbs.
New Talent: Iron Heart – Blood Shield’s duration is increased by 2 seconds and it absorbs 20% more damage.
New Talent: Bloodshot – While Blood Shield is active, you deal 25% increased Physical damage.
New Talent: Sanguine Ground – You deal 5% more damage and receive 5% more healing while standing in your Death and Decay.
New Talent: Coagulopathy – Enemies affected by Blood Plague take 5% increased damage from you and Death Strike increases the damage of your Blood Plague by 25% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
New Talent: Umbilicus Eternus – After Vampiric Blood expires, you absorb damage equal to 5 times the damage your Blood Plague dealt during Vampiric Blood.
Unquenchable Thirst has been removed.
Developers’ note: This talent has been cut and replaced with Umbilicus Eternus. Unquenchable Thirst had a bit of design overlap with both Bonestorm and Shattering Bone on the opposite side of the tree. The choice to replace it was done to add what we hope is a more interesting decision point as you navigate toward the capstones especially factoring in the synergy of the new Blood Plague talents and existing Vampiric Blood talents.
Unholy
Developers’ note: In addition to Unholy’s latest changes we have a few updates we’d like to make to their talents that affect resource generation. The changes to the class tree should be a step in the right direction for better balancing Unholy’s resource economy, but we also want to target a few Unholy specific talents as well. Unholy has been a class with a higher downtime and while we think some downtime can be okay, it’s important to find a balance between too high and too low. The current alpha version swung that pendulum too far in one direction and we are looking to find a better middle ground that both feels fun and rewarding to play. Resource tuning will continue to be on going as we head into Dragonflight. As mentioned last week we are making efforts to prepare for tuning in Dragonflight as such Unholy will be receiving a few tuning tweaks to their talents.
Plaguebringer – Disease damage now ticks 100% more quickly (was 150%).
Feasting Strikes – Removed Scourge Strike’s chance to refund 1 rune, and now chance to trigger increased to 20%.
Developers’ note: Having both Festering Strike and Scourge Strike trigger a Rune refund left us very little room to tune around and also made this something that just always happened. In an effort to give us more ways to tune this and also add a little more gameplay thought we are changing this to only work on Festering Strike.
Replenishing Wound – Reduce Runic Power gained from popping a Festering Wound to 2 (was 3).
Improved Death Coil – Damage increase reduced to 15/30% (was 20/40%).
Plaguebearer – Cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 45 seconds). Status changed to implemented.
Ghoulish Frenzy – Attack speed and damage increased to 6/12% (was 4/8%).
Morbidity – Damage per disease reduced to 2% at rank 2 (was 3%).
Death Rot – Reduced to 1% per stack up to 10% (was 2% per stack, up to 20%). Increased the duration to 10 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Fixed an issue preventing Death Rot from being applied by multiple Death Knights.
Commander of the Dead – Damage to Gargoyle and Army Ghouls reduced to 30% (was 40%).
DEMON HUNTER
Developer’s note: Today’s build includes the final spec talent tree to be updated to its Dragonflight version: Vengeance Demon Hunter.The Vengeance tree allows players to customize their offensive and defensive gameplay to conquer the game’s challenges as they see fit. Talents include opportunities to unlock familiar skills like Spirit Bomb and Elysian Decree, to choose bonuses for core skills like Demon Spikes and Sigils, and to invest into spec systems like Soul Fragments and an expanded/reworked ‘Frailty’ debuff exclusive to Vengeance talents.In additional to the talents themselves, there are two notable changes to the base function of Souls and Soul Fragments. The first change is that non-demon Souls and Soul Fragments will require more precision to pick up manually, now requiring moving within 4 yards (down from previous 6 yards) with the intention that the circumstances where players accidentally pick up Fragments will occur less frequently. The second change increases the radius that nearby Soul Fragments will remain available for consumption via skills to 100 yards (up from previous 25 yards).We hope you’ll enjoy your experiences with the new Vengeance spec talents, and be willing to provide feedback about those experiences with us!
EVOKER
General
New Ability: Fury of the Aspects – Increases Haste by 30% for all party and raid members for 40 seconds. Allies receiving this effect will become Exhausted and unable to benefit from Fury of the Aspects or similar effects again for 10 minutes.
MAGE
Class Tree
New Talent: Sloooow Down – Slow applies to all enemies within 5 yards of your target.
Temporal Warp – Now causes Time Warp to not trigger its cooldown if cast without a sated or equivalent debuff.
Time Manipulation – Now requires Clearcasting Arcane Missiles. No longer decreases the cooldown of Blast Wave.
Shatter – Removed from class tree.
Added additional connections to Ring of Frost.
Frigid Winds – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Tempest Barrier – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Diverted Energy – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Fire
Split up the Firestarter and Searing Touch choice node above gate 1.
Frost
Shatter – Replaced Shatter Rank 2 and includes both effects.
MONK
General
Heavy Air – Moved to NYI, redesign coming soon.
Resonant Fists has been redesigned – Now simpler to activate and deals area of effect damage to nearby enemies.
Bounce Back – Now correctly triggers only on hits of 20% or more.
Mistweaver
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Zen Pulse – Cooldown increased to 30 seconds (was 15 seconds). Damage increased by 80% and healing increased by 50%.
Yu’lon’s Whisper – Healing reduced by 25%.
Spirit of the Crane – Adjusted mana refund to 0.45% (was 0.65%).
Misty Peaks – Enveloping Mists procs now last 2 seconds (was 3 seconds).
Enveloping Mist – Healing reduced by 20%.
Ancient Teachings of the Monastery – Healing reduced to 125% of damage done (was 200%).
Ancient Teachings of the Monastery healing increased by 60% in PvP combat.
Developers’ note: Mistweaver Monk’s damage capabilities have gone up by a significant amount due to the Dragonflight talent system. This adjustment to Ancient Teachings reflects that increased damage potential and is not intended as a large nerf compared to Mistweaver’s current Shadowlands experience with Ancient Teachings. It is likely that further adjustments are needed (for example, some damage going down and Ancient Teaching’s healing going back up), but this should get us in the ballpark for now.
Clouded Focus – Now increases the healing and reduces the mana cost of Enveloping Mist and Vivify by 15% (was 20%).
Windwalker
Multiple talents have been moved to allow better flow and decision-making throughout the tree.
Gale Burst has been removed.
Rushing Jade Wind – Damage increased by 33%.
Meridian Strikes – Cooldown reduction increased slightly.
Hit Scheme – Replaced with Hit Combo as intended.
Spiritual Focus – Now works with Serenity.
New Talent: Hardened Soles – Increases critical strike chance and critical strike damage of Blackout Kick.
PALADIN
General
New Ability: Intercession – Petition the Light on the behalf of a fallen ally, restoring spirit to body and allowing then to reenter battle with 60% health and at least 20% mana. 2 second cast time for Retribution and Holy specializations, instant cast and requires 3 Holy Power for Protection specialization.
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Seal of the Crusader damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 15%).
Seal of Reprisal damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).
Protection
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Developers’ note: This week we focused on pathing adjustments for the Class & Protection trees. In the coming weeks, we will be transitioning towards talent iteration and tuning.
Retribution
Final Verdict damage reduced by 6%.
Righteous Verdict damage bonus reduced to 5% (was 15%).
PRIEST
General
Power Word: Shield – Now a 7.5 seconds cooldown reduced by Haste. Absorption increased by 80%. No longer applies Weakened Soul.
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Depth of the Shadows – Purge the Wicked / Shadow Word: Pain increase the healing of your next Shadow Mend by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
Death and Madness has been redesigned – Resets the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death if the target is not killed while below 20% health. Generates 30 Insanity over 4 seconds if the target dies within 7 seconds.
New Talent: Inspiration – Critical heals from Flash Heal, Penance, and Heal grant Inspiration, reducing physical damage taken by 5% for 15 seconds.
New Talent: Void Tendrils – Roots all enemies within 8 yards for 20 seconds (6 seconds in PvP combat). Void Tendrils can be killed to break the root.
New Talent: Blessed Recovery – After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, Blessed Recovery heals you for 20% of the damage taken over 6 seconds. Additional critical hits taken during the effect increase the healing received.
Translucent Image – Now lasts the full duration of Fade. Buff consolidated into Fade to reduce aura squares.
New Talent: Phantasm – Fade removes all movement impairing effects when used.
New Talent: Angelic Bulwark – Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.
Shadow Mend – Now a 15 second cooldown. Healing amount increased by 20%.
New Talent: Move with Grace – Leap of Faith’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Throes of Pain – Now restores 1% mana for Holy/Disc and 5 Insanity for Shadow.
New Talent: Rhapsody – For every 5 seconds that you do not cast Holy Nova, the healing and damage of your next Holy Nova is increased by 10%. This effect can stack up to 20 times.
New Talent: Sheer Terror – Increases the amount of damage required to break your Psychic Scream by 100%.
Cleric’s Armaments – Removed and merged into Tools of the Cloth.
Tools of the Cloth – For 12 seconds after casting Power Word: Shield, you deal 10% additional damage and healing with Smite and Holy Nova.
New Talent: Manipulation – Your Smite, Penance, Holy Fire, Mind Blast, and Mind Spike casts reduce the cooldown of Mindgames by 0.5/1.0 seconds.
Holy Word: Life – No longer gives backlash to the player. If a target is healed below 35% health, the healing amount is increased by 400% and the cooldown of Holy Word: Life is reduced by 25 seconds.
New Talent: Shattered Perceptions – Mindgames lasts an additional 2 seconds, deals an additional 25% damage, and reverses 25% additional damage or healing.
New Talent: Improved Purify – Purify additionally removes all Disease effects (Disc/Holy only).
New Talent: Spell Warding – Now also reduces all magic damage taken by 3%.
New Talent: Apathy – Your Mind Blast critical strikes reduce your target’s movement speed by 75% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Fade – Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 5 seconds/10 seconds.
Shadow Word: Death – Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Purify – Baseline for Holy and Discipline. Only dispels Magic effects.
Shadow Word: Pain – Duration increased to 16 seconds to offset the loss of a rank 2 spell (was 12 seconds).
Eternal Rest – Reduces the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death by 12 seconds.
Developers’ note:Was Shadow Word: Death Rank 2. Repurposed as a PvP Talent.
Discipline
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Rapture – Causes Power Word: Shield to have no cooldown and increases its absorption by 30% (was 200%).
Atonement – Can now be applied by Renew and Flash Heal.
Developers’ note: Now that Power Word: Shield has a cooldown, we’re promoting Renew to an Atonement applicator.
New Talent: Make Amends – When Penance deals damage, the duration of Atonement on yourself is increased by 1 second and when your Penance heals, the duration of Atonement on your target is increased by 1 second.
New Talent: Divine Aegis – Critical heals create a protective shield around your target, absorbing 8%/15% of the amount healed. Lasts 15 seconds. Critical heals with Power Word: Shield absorb 8%/15% additional damage.
New Talent: Aegis of Wrath – Power Word: Shield absorbs 30% additional damage, but the absorb amount decays by 3% every 1 second.
Exaltation – Increases the duration of Rapture and Spirit Shell by 3 seconds (was 1 second).
New Talent: Bright Pupil – Reduces the cooldown of Power Word: Radiance by 5 seconds.
New Talent: Enduring Luminescence – Power Word: Radiance applies Atonement at an additional 15% of its normal duration.
New Talent: Painful Punishment – Each Penance bolt extends the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked on enemies hit by 0.7 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Shadow Word: Pain – Increases the damage of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Borrowed Time – Casting Power Word: Shield increases your Haste by 4%/8% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Train of Thought – Flash Heal, Renew, and Shadow Mend reduce the cooldown of Power Word: Shield by 1 second. Smite reduces the cooldown of Penance by 0.5 seconds.
New Talent: Balance in All Things – Your damaging Shadow spells increase the damage of your next Holy spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%. Your damaging Holy spells increase the damage of your next Shadow spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%.
New Talent: Resplendent Light – Light’s Wrath deals an additional 2%/4% damage per ally affected by your Atonement.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Your Smite, Mind Blast, and Penance casts reduce the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Expiation – Increases the damage of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 10%/20%. Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death consume 3 seconds/6 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked, instantly dealing that damage.
New Talent: Wrath, Unleashed – Reduces the cast time of Light’s Wrath by 1 second and increases its critical strike chance by 15%. Smite deals 40% additional damage for 15 seconds after casting Light’s Wrath.
New Talent: Weal and Woe – Your Penance bolts increase the damage of your next Smite by 8% or the absorb of your next Power Word: Shield by 3%. Stacks up to 7 times.
Power of the Dark Side – Increases the effectiveness of Penance by 30% (was 50%).
Light’s Promise – Name changed (was Power Word: Radiance Rank 2).
Protector of the Frail – Reduces the cooldown of Pain Suppression by 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
Pain Transformation – Heals for 12% of maximum health and applies Atonement (was 8% of max health).
Malicious Scission – Increases the duration of Schism by 3 seconds (was 50%).
Purge the Wicked – Now deals Radiant damage (was Fire).
Penance – Now a baseline ability.
Atonement – Removed Shadow Word: Death from the Atonement blacklist, meaning it can now Atone.
Holy
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Revitalizing Prayers – Prayer of Healing has a 15%/30% chance to apply a 6 second Renew to allies it heals.
New Talent: Prayerful Litany – Prayer of Healing restores an additional 30% health to the most injured ally it affects.
New Talent: Empowered Renew – Renew instantly heals your target for 10% of its total periodic effect.
New Talent: Rapid Recovery – Increases the healing done by Renew by 35%, but decreases its base duration by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Desperate Times – Increases healing by 6%/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.
New Talent: Spirited Litany – After your Prayer of Mending heals 80/40 times, gain Power Infusion for 10 seconds.
New Talent: Archbishop Benedictus’ Restitution – After Spirit of Redemption expires, you will revive at up to 100% health, based on your effectiveness during Spirit of Redemption. After reviving, you cannot benefit from Spirit of Redemption for 10 min.
New Talent: Holy Mending – When Prayer of Mending jumps to a target affected by your Renew, that target is instantly healed.
New Talent: Everlasting Light – Heal restores up to 15% additional health based on your missing mana.
New Talent: Say Your Prayers – Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to not consume a charge when it jumps to a new target.
Divine Word – Sanctuary can no longer be moved.
New Talent: Healing Chorus – Your Renew healing increases the healing done by your next Circle of Healing by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
New Talent: Orison – Circle of Healing heals 1 additional ally and its cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Crisis Management – Increases the critical strike chance of Flash Heal and Heal by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Prismatic Echoes – Increases the healing done by your Mastery: Echo of Light by 15%/30%.
New Talent: Prayers of the Virtuous – Prayer of Mending gains 1/2 additional charges.
New Talent: Pontifex – Critical heals from Flash Heal and Heal increase your healing done by your next word spell by 10%, stacking up to 2 times.
New Talent: Harmonious Apparatus – Circle of Healing reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify, Prayer of Mending reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity, and Holy Fire reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise by 2 seconds/4 seconds.
New Talent: Lightweaver – Flash Heal reduces the cast time of your next Heal within 20 seconds by 30% and increases its healing done by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.
Heal – Now a baseline ability.
Guardians of the Light – Guardian Spirit summons a spirit to watch over you in addition to your target.
Sanctified Prayers – Casting Holy Word: Sanctify increases healing done by Prayer of Healing by 10% for 15 seconds.
Benediction – Your Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to leave a Renew on each target it heals (was 25%).
Renewed Faith – Your healing is increased by 8% on targets with Renew (was 10%).
Miracle Worker – Holy Word: Serenity gains an additional charge.
Shadow
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Mind Spike – Blasts the target for Shadowfrost damage, but extinguishes your shadow damage-over-time effects from the target in the process. Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times. Generates 6 Insanity.
New Talent: Mind Flay: Insanity – Casting Devouring Plague transforms your Mind Flay spell into Mind Flay: Insanity for 5 seconds. Mind Flay: Insanity deals 80% more damage than Mind Flay.
Mind Sear – No longer generates Insanity. Now costs 25 Insanity per tick to channel.
Tithe Evasion – Shadow Word: Death deals 75% less damage to you.
Mental Fortitude – Devouring Plague now triggers this. Is now capped at 10% maximum health.
Rot and Wither renamed to Mental Decay. Now guaranteed to extend Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
Psychic Link – Now also occurs from Mind Spike.
Monomania – Also increases the critical chance of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch.
New Talent: Painbreaker’s Psalm – Shadow Word: Death consumes 4 seconds/8 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch, instantly dealing that damage to the target and generating up to 10/20 Insanity.
New Talent: Lunacy – Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 10. Reduces the Insanity drained when Mind Sear deals damage by 5.
New Talent: Dark Void – Unleashes an explosion of dark energy around the target, dealing Shadow damage and applying Shadow Word: Pain to your target and 7 nearby enemies. Generates 20 Insanity.
New Talent: Tormented Spirits – Your Shadow Word: Pain damage has a 5% chance to create a shadowy version of yourself that floats towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch. Critical strikes increase the chance to 10%.
New Talent: Mind Melt – Mind Spike reduces cast time of your next Mind Blast by 50%, stacking up 2 times. Lasts 6 seconds.
New Talent: Surge of Darkness – Your Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague damage have a chance to cause your next Mind Spike not to consume your damage over time effects, be instant, and deal 50% additional damage. Stacks up to 3 times.
New Talent: Dark Evangelism – Your Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Void Torrent damage increases the damage of your periodic Shadow effects by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times.
New Talent: Dark Ascension – Consumes Dark Evangelism to increase the damage of your non-periodic Shadow abilities by 4% per stack consumed. Lasts 18 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
New Talent: Maddening Touch – Vampiric Touch has a 50%/100% chance to generate 1 Insanity each time it deals damage.
New Talent: Whispers of the Damned – Your Mind Blast and Mind Spike critical strikes generate an additional 3/5 Insanity.
New Talent: Piercing Shadows – Your Shadow damage spell casts increase the Shadow damage you deal by 0.5%/1.0% for 25 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
New Talent: Pain of Death – Increases the damage dealt by Shadow Word: Death by 25%. Shadow Word: Death deals 20% of its damage to all targets affected by your Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards.
New Talent: Derangement – Increases the initial damage of Devouring Plague by 75%. Mind Sear deals damage 20% faster.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Critical damage from Mind Spike and Mind Flay reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Mastermind – Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Spike and Mind Blast by 3%/6% and increases their critical strike damage bonus by 15%/30%.
Mind Flay – Now overrides Smite.
Vampiric Touch – Now a baseline ability.
Shadowform – Holy spells no longer cancel Shadowform.
Mind Sear – Damage increased by 80%.
Dispersion – Now also heals the player for 25% of their maximum health over its duration.
Intangibility – Dispersion heals you for an additional 25% of your maximum health over its duration and its cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Shadow Crash – Now applies Vampiric Touch to 4 targets.
Surrender to Madness – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 90 seconds).
Void Bolt – Cooldown increased to 9 seconds and damage increased by 23% (was 4.5 seconds).
Hungering Void – Debuff duration increased to 12 seconds (was 6 seconds). Damage over time extension increased to 2 seconds and 4 seconds on critical strikes (was 1 second and 2 seconds).
Vampiric Insight – No longer gives a charge to Mind Blast passively.
WARLOCK
Destruction
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Combusting Engine – Replaced with Explosive Potential.
New Talent: Explosive Potential – Reduces the cooldown of Conflagrate by 2 seconds.
Chaos Shards – Replaced with Scalding Flames.
New Talent: Scalding Flames – Increases the damage of Immolate by 13%/25%.
WARRIOR
Class Tree Developer Notes
This week we have a fair number of bug fixes as we start to get to a point where the class tree is mostly complete.
We’ve customized a few talents to be more spec specific, so they are clearer and more useful in their intention, such as Honed Reflexes, Barbaric Training, and Crushing Force.
We’ve heard your feedback regarding Massacre and Sudden Death, so we’ve reverted these changes and made adjustments elsewhere to ensure DPS is still in line with intentions.
Massacre is now located on the spec tree for Arms and Protection where there’s a higher opportunity cost per talent point with regards to damage throughput that in the class tree.
We have some work to do on the nodes beyond the 20-point gate still, specifically related to Shockwave, Spear of Bastion, and Thunderous Roar.
We’re also looking at customizing a few more talents based on your spec to make them clearer in their function and purpose for each spec.
Class Tree
Removed the lockout period from Concussive Blows.
Fixed the various Tormented memories procing themselves and granting extra durations. They should all be working as intended now.
Weapon specialization nodes now only appear relevant to their related specialization (e.g. Two-Handed Specialization only appears on the Arms version of the class tree).
New Protection Talent Variant: Crushing Force – Shield Slam deals and additional 5% damage and deals 5% increased critical strike damage per rank.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Arms Variant) – Slam and Whirlwind now deal 40% more damage but now cost 5 more rage.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Fury Variant) – Slam and Whirlwind damage increased by 20% and their critical strike damage is also increased by 10%.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Protection Variant) – Revenge deals 40% more damage but now costs 10 more rage.
Rumbling Earth now also increases the range of Shockwave by 6 yards.
New Talent: Sonic Boom – Shockwave deals 350% increased damage and will always deal critical strike damage.
New Arms Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Overpower reduced by 1 second and cooldown of Pummel reduced by 0.5 seconds.
New Fury Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Raging Blow reduced by 1 second and cooldown of Pummel reduced by 0.5 seconds.
New Protection Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Shield Slam and Pummel reduced by 1 second.
For Arms and Protection specializations Massacre and Sudden Death have switched places between the class and spec trees and increases the execute threshold up to 35% again.
Sudden Death procs per minute is now 1.7 (was 1.5).
Sudden Death should now refund rage again.
Quick Thinking – Now also increases your auto-attack speed by 2.5% per rank.
Cruel Strikes – Now also grants an 2.5% critical damage per rank for Overpower, Raging Blow, and Revenge respective to the relevant specialization.
Arms and Protection Execute damage reduced by 5%.
Spear of Bastion cooldown increased by 50% but instant damage also increased by 50%.
Thunderous Roar Damage no longer has a hidden undocumented crit damage bonus.
Thunderous Roar now ticks every 2 seconds (was 3 seconds) and has a duration of 8 seconds (was 9 seconds). It now also deals a total of 160% attack power (was 135% across its duration).
Thunderous Aftershocks has been redesigned and renamed: Thunderous Words – Now increases the duration of Dragon Roar’s Bleed effect by 4 seconds and increases the damage of your bleed effects by 20%.
Arms Developer Notes
Generally happy with where Arms is at, moving forward changes are likely to be small and/or tuning based.
Fixed various bugs and triggers so more things should be working correctly in conjunction with each other.
We’ve added some extra nodes to try and allow Bladestorm to feel more useful in various situations.
The left side of the tree had too many 2-point nodes, so we’ve reduced this to allow for more choices.
Arms
New Talent: Gathering Storm – While Bladestorming every 1 second you gain 5% movement speed and 5% Strength, stacking. Lasts 6 seconds.
New Talent: Dance of Death – If your Bladestorm kills an enemy your next Bladestorm lasts 3 seconds longer.
Unhinged now correctly triggers outside of the Shadowlands.
Unhinged, Gathering Storm, and Merciless Bonegrinder now trigger correctly from various Whirlwind sources.
Impale is now 1 point and grants 10% increased critical damage (was 7.5% per point).
Critical Thinking now grants 2.5% Execute critical damage per rank instead of Cleave and Whirlwind.
Juggernaut now lasts 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Fatality should now always hit unless the target is immune or due to specific encounter mechanics.
Bloodsurge chance to trigger increased to 20% (was 10%).
Bloodletting now causes your Bleed effects to last for 6 seconds long.
Removed Weapon requirements from Sharpened Blades and Concussive Blows.
Concussive Blows now correctly effects the damage dealt by Warbreaker.
Concussive Blows now correctly increases the duration of the Colossus Smash effect by 3 seconds, and Warbreaker gain and additional 20% damage.
Fury Developer Notes
Generally happy with where Fury is and do not expect to make large scale changes in the future. As with Arms, changes are likely to be small/or tuning based.
As stated previously, we’re looking at if Annihilator can work for multiple weapon types and if we can open this playstyle up for everyone.
Working internally on Odyn’s Fury subsequent nodes and expect to have them functioning shortly.
Fury
Maximum Frenzy stacks increased to 4 (was 3).
Cadence of Fujieda has been redesigned – Now increases your auto attack speed by 5% per stack instead of your Haste and stacks up to four times.
As a Fury Warrior if you do not have improved Whirlwind, Whirlwind should now correctly cost 30 Rage.
New Talent: Gathering Storm – While Ravager is active, every 1 second you gain 5% movement speed and 5% Strength, stacking. Lasts 6 seconds.
Deft Experience decreases the cooldown of Bloodthirst by 0.75 seconds per rank (was 0.5 seconds).
Protection Developer Notes
As we wind down attention and focus on Arms and Fury, we’re now putting more focus on Protection internally. Protection will undergo a tuning pass similar to Arms and Fury soon.
Protection
Fixed another issue with Seismic Reverberation and Revenge, hopefully the last one!
Bloodsurge chance to trigger increased to 20% (was 10%).
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
CLASSES
DEVELOPERS’ NOTE
In today’s build players will notice changes to some classes’ PvP talents, and we wanted to share our thoughts on PvP Talents going into Dragonflight. In addition to being one of our tuning knobs for PvP, a general goal for PvP talents is to provide interesting gameplay mechanics unique to PvP while also maintaining classes’ fantasy and combat feel.
The talent revamp has a large impact on PvP in multiple ways. Firstly, players will have access to new abilities that are in the class and spec trees as well as the option to customize their builds tailored for specific PvP content and team compositions. These options and talent changes will provide new and exciting gameplay opportunities in PvP at the start of the expansion.
Additionally, the talent revamp inherently affected PvP talents for all specs, but to varying degrees – some talent trees integrated existing PvP talents into the core and spec trees, some classes had abilities redesigned that impacted specific PvP talents and many PvP talents require dependencies from the talent trees. After an assessment of the PvP Talents available to each spec we have some notes and changes going into Dragonflight.
The new Dragonflight talents trees have made a number of abilities available to an entire class that were previously only available to a single specialization. So, several PvP talents based on these abilities are also now available to the entire class. In the upcoming alpha build, Priests and Mages are the first classes we have updated with this philosophy. At the same time, several PvP talents are now being used Dragonflight talent tree or no longer work due to class changes. In cases where a spec does not have enough PvP talents to meet our minimum criteria, we will be adding new abilities. We will be continuing to evaluate PvP talents when the expansion launches and we intend to take a broader look to PvP talents later in the expansion life cycle, similar to what was done in Shadowlands’ Chains of Domination update.
As noted above, PvP talents shine when they lean into gameplay scenarios that are very unique to PvP. One example of a new PvP talent is one Shaman players may have already noticed, Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds. In this week’s build, all caster DPS and healer specializations will have Precognition as an available PvP talent. This talent is intended to elevate the importance of fake-casting gameplay. We look forward to your feedback on it.
All ranged spell casting and healing specializations have a new PvP Talent:
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
MAGE
General
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
Ice Wall – Now available for all specializations.
Ring of Fire – Now available for all specializations.
Fire
New PvP Talent: Glass Cannon – Increase Fireball and Scorch damage by 40%, but reduces your maximum health by 15%.
Frost
New PvP Talent: Snowdrift – Summon a strong Blizzard that surrounds you for 6 seconds that slows enemies by 70% and deals Frost damage every 1 second. Enemies that are caught in Snowdrift for 3 seconds consecutively become Frozen in ice, stunned for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Frost Bomb – Places a Frost Bomb on the target. After a 5 seconds the bomb explodes, dealing Frost damage to the target and Frost damage to all other targets within 10 yards. All affected targets are slowed by 70% for 4 seconds.
PRIEST
General
Eternal Rest – Now available for all specializations.
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
New PvP Talent: Catharsis – 20% of all damage that you take is stored in the Catharstick. The stored amount cannot exceed 15% of your maximum health. The initial damage of your next Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked deals this stored damage to your target.
Discipline
Delivered from Evil and Cardinal Mending PvP talents now available for Discipline.
Holy
Purification, Purified Resolve, and Strength of Soul PvP talents now available for Holy.
Shadow
Cardinal Mending, Strength of Soul, and Delivered From Evil PvP talents now available for Shadow.
NEW ARENA: NOKHUDON PROVING GROUNDS
Within Clan Nokhud’s stronghold are their Proving Grounds, where the centaurs compete to be named the clan’s greatest warrior. Players will be able enter the Nokhudon Proving Grounds to battle for glory by queueing up for Arenas.
The Nokhudon Proving Grounds is a new Arena map being introduced in Dragonflight that has a unique gameplay layout, utilizing ramps, pillars and a middle wall for line of site within the map. During the testing period, The Nokhudon Proving Grounds will be available to queue for as the only map in the pool for queued arena, including Solo Shuffle. So queue up Gladiators – we look forward to your feedback and we’ll see you in the arena!
PROFESSIONS
HIGH END CRAFTING UPDATE
In this week’s build, we have changed how limits on high end crafted gear works. Instead of limiting you to equipping 5 pieces of high item level crafted gear, you can now equip an unlimited amount of basic high end gear. Some of the more special crafted gear which includes special effects, or has a special effect added through an optional reagent will have a equip limit of 2 though to help limit overall gear complexity.
The Profession trainer and vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind have been disabled temporarily.
HERBALISM
Herbalism trainers have now been enabled across the Dragon Isles. Gatherers in Dragonflight can now pick herbs that can be found all over the the Dragon Isles, and also focus on how they want to grow as a Gatherer through specializations. A large addition to both Herbalism and Mining is the ability to Overload special nodes (such as Windswept and Frigid nodes), which will cause a unique effect based on your rank in Specializations and the node itself. Overload only works on these special herb nodes, it does not do anything to normal nodes. To access the Overload ability, you need unlock it via the Mastering the Elements specialization path.
Please note that herb nodes are still a work in progress for the Azure Span and Thaldraszus. Both of these zones will be getting additional node spawn locations in the coming weeks.
SPECIALIZATIONS
Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.
HERBALISM
Bountiful Harvests – Improve at your general harvesting skills, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering herbs.
Floriculture – Study the anatomy of Saxifrage, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering it.
Mastering the Elements – Study the intricacies of the awakening elements within the Dragon Isles and their effects on the plant life, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering elementally-charged herbs.
Windswept – Specialize in Windswept herbs, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering them.
USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY
NEW HUD UI — Get ready for a fully updated and customizable Heads Up Display (HUD) User Interface (UI) that’s been created with contemporary displays in mind, designed to be effective, attractive, and accessible.
Edit Mode
Added Talking Heads
Added Chat Frame
Updated container/bag display art.
NEW OPTION: DISPLAY NAME SIZE ADJUSTMENT
Players can now adjust a minimum on-screen text size to keep it legible.
The text will also fade to indicate distance rather than shrinking in size.
Enable this feature by typing “/console WorldTextMinSize 16” in chat. An interface option will be added later into the Accessibility options.
Set to 0 (off), 8 (minimum viable), and 16 (bigger for low vision use).
Aimed Shot will no longer fail to trigger from Double Tap (Talent) if no target is selected when the cast finishes.
Items and Rewards
Olea Manu, located in Faith’s Repose, has come into possession of a few cosmetic items found around Korthia and Zereth Mortis. Players may purchase them with Cyphers of the First Ones.
Fixed an issue where items from Sire Denathrius and Stone Legion Generals could not be socketed.
Player versus Player
Hunter
Marksmanship
Aimed Shot will no longer occasionally deal full damage in PvP combat when triggered from Double Tap.
Priest
Holy
Divine Ascension (PvP Talent) will once again provide a short window of immunity against damage, stuns, and roots.
We’d like to address few topics that have come up regarding the new Mistweaver Talent tree.
Tree Layout
In the Mistweaver tree, our intent is for players to make compelling decisions between powerful abilities, particularly with their final points, in order to decide on their build. We want players to feel engaged with pathing throughout this tree and have reasons to explore a variety of options regardless of their build type.
This may result in some ability placement feeling counterintuitive. The question “this spell has great synergy with this other spell, so why are they not placed next to each other?” can be answered: We want to maintain pathing tension, so that players feel engaged throughout the talent selection, as well as avoid certain talent combinations for balance purposes.
Rotational Clutter
Several pieces of the Monk and Mistweaver tree are adding options for active buttons on a short cooldown. Too many relatively low impact abilities on a short cooldown can lead to gameplay feeling rushed and overwhelming.
Zen Pulse has been the main offender in our eyes. In future builds, we’re looking at increasing the cooldown and effect of Zen Pulse to make it feel more impactful while reducing rotational clutter.
We will be keeping an eye on this problem moving forward with spells such as Refreshing Jade Wind and Faeline Stomp.
Mistweaving and Fistweaving
Our intent is for both builds to feel as though they have options and reasons to explore throughout the tree. The trick will be to find pathing that satisfies both builds without removing options or build diversity.
We were overall pleased with the first iteration of this tree but are still looking to make improvements. Players can expect a few nodes that may have felt like blockers to swap positions and additional connections to facilitate this in future builds.
Renewing Mist Synergies
Our intent is for spreading Renewing Mist to feel rewarding and powerful. We’re happy so far with how Misty Peaks, Rapid Diffusion, and the return of Dancing Mist have been received and we’re glad to see many players feeling much the same way. Our goal is to tune around these effects remaining engaging and synergistic.
Essence Font
The placement of some abilities, namely Essence Font, at the top of the tree has come off as alarming for some players. Since Essence Font is not an ability that sees universal use, why is it required to move past the first gate?
The intent for this placement is to sacrifice a small amount of choice early in the tree to maximize choice later in the tree. There are many different modifiers later in the tree that rely on Essence Font to function, and the layout of the tree overall would be heavily impacted if these needed to be packed into a small subsection.
A good example of the opposite of this placement is Life Cocoon-related talents in this tree. While players can expect the Life Cocoon talents to feel more optional with increased pathing being added in future builds, the overall placement of these nodes is reliant on stemming from Life Cocoon, due to it not being required to progress past the first gate.
With the next alpha update, you will see that all trees within the Priest class, including the core talent tree, have received substantial changes in terms of pathing, arrangement, and choices. For the entirety of these changes, please look forward to this week’s patch notes. That said, let’s Leap of Faith in and take a peek at some of the changes we have in store for Priests in Dragonflight.
Core Tree
The original tree had limited choices as it was obvious which direction you were supposed to go based on specialization. Additionally, we wanted to reel back on how much throughput was available in the Core tree. While there will still be some throughput options available, we wanted to focus on utility options within the Core tree to let the Specialization trees focus more on throughput choices. Here are some abilities you will see in the Core tree:
(New) Angelic Bulwark – When an attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 15% of your maximum health for 20 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.
(New) Void Shift – You and the currently targeted party or raid member swap health percentages. Increases the lower health percentage of the two to 25% if below that amount.
Holy Word: Life – A word of holy power that heals the target. If the target is below 35% health, Holy Word: Life heals for 400% more and the cooldown of Holy Word: Life is reduced by 20 seconds.
Holy Tree
Our goal with Holy was to allow for further specialization into your favorite spells. Whether it’s increasing the power of your single target heals, AoE interactions with Prayer of Healing and Holy Word: Sanctify, or you just want Renew on your entire group, we hope you are able to find a playstyle you enjoy.
(New) Revitalizing Prayers – Prayer of Healing as a 30% chance to apply a 6 secondsond Renew to allies it heals.
Harmonious Apparatus – Circle of Healing reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify, Prayer of Mending reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity, and Holy Fire reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise by 2/4 seconds.
(New) Spirited Litany – After Prayer of Mending heals 80/40 times, gain Power Infusion for 10 seconds.
Discipline Tree
With Discipline, we aimed to address a lot of the dependency issues that existed and, like Holy, address the lack of connectedness in the tree. Along with this, we took a hard look at what choices were being offered to the player and revised those as well. Here are some examples of new spells in the Discipline tree along with some changes to core spells:
Power Word: Shield now has a cooldown and its absorb has been significantly increased. Weakened Soul has been removed. Renew and Flash Heal can now apply Atonement and are intended to be primary sources of Atonement application. Our aim is to allow for individual Power Word: Shield casts for each spec to be more valuable as well as reducing frustration surrounding the Weakened Soul debuff.
(New) Expiation – Increases the damage of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 10/20%. Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death consume 3/6 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked, instantly dealing that damage.
(New) Aegis of Wrath – Power Word: Shield absorbs 30% additional damage, but the absorb amount decays by 3% every 1 seconds.
(New) Divine Aegis – Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 15% of the amount healed. Lasts 15 seconds. Critical heals with Power Word: Shield absorb 15% additional damage.
Shadow Tree
Shadow has received the largest batch of changes among the group. Our initial aim was to address dungeon gameplay surrounding Searing Nightmare. Here’s a few changes that we expect will improve Shadow’s dungeon gameplay:
Shadow Crash – Now applies Vampiric Touch to 4 targets.
(New) Dark Void – Deals damage to your target and nearby enemies, and applies Shadow Word: Pain to 8 targets.
(New) Pain of Death – Shadow Word: Death deals 20% of its damage to all targets affected by your Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards.
Mind Blast’s damage can be increased through a few talents, allowing for Psychic Link to become more valuable in AoE.
Mind Sear now costs Insanity instead of generating Insanity. Its damage has been significantly increased.
Searing Nightmare has been removed.
We also discussed a design where Voidform is not central to the spec. Prior to Legion, the spec had its share of fun talents and abilities that we have modernized and brought into the talent tree, including Mind Spike and Dark Evangelism.
We appreciate the abundance of feedback given and your patience as we worked on bringing the Priest talent trees in line with our current design philosophy. We will continue to monitor feedback in the coming weeks as we bug fix and finish implementation on these last few talents. Thank you and we will see you in the Dragon Isles soon!
