NEW ZONE: ZARALEK CAVERN

• Zaralek Cavern world quests, objectives, rares, and dragonriding are available for testing.
• The new underground zone is located on the eastern side of the Ohn’ahran Plains, just outside of Valdrakken. Players may access the zone by flying through the tunnel, leading to the new zone, Zaralek Cavern.
• The Embers of Neltharion campaign will become available in next week’s PTR build.

FYRAKK ASSAULTS

• Fyrakk’s forces are gathering resources at Suffusion Camps located in the Azure Span and Ohn’ahran Plains. Disrupt their efforts to lure Fyrakk and his disciples out.

INVITE BOTH FACTIONS’ PLAYERS TO GUILDS

• Players who have been enjoying Cross-Faction Instances now have the ability to join the same guild as their opposite-faction friends and benefit from conveniences like shared chat and guild repairs.
• Guilds are still affiliated with either the Horde or the Alliance, depending on the faction of the guild leader. Guild achievements and guild vendors, for example, will still reflect the guild’s primary faction. Opposite faction members may benefit from unlocked shared perks but may be unable to contribute to certain achievements (e.g. we would not expect Alliance members of a Horde guild to be able to contribute progress towards the “Alliance Slayer” guild achievement).
• This is our first step of potentially several in publicly testing this long-awaited feature, so keep an eye out for updates and we look forward to reading your experiences in the feedback thread throughout the PTR cycle.

NEW UPGRADE SYSTEM

A new upgrade system will replace many of the various upgrade systems currently in place, such as Valor and Storm Gear, with a single system that covers most of the game. This system will last for the duration of Season Two, and after that we’ll evaluate how well it’s working and whether we want to keep it.

• The basics of this system are simple: you’ll earn a new currency called Flightstones from just about anything you do— complete a world quest, kill a unique creature, run a Mythic Keystone dungeon, kill a raid boss, etc. You’ll also get items called Shadowflame Crests (or fragments of them), which come in four varieties from different content difficulty levels. Shadowflame Crests and their fragments will also come from a wide range of content, including outdoor gameplay, Mythic+ dungeons, and raids. You’ll be able to upgrade almost any item in Season Two’s max-level gameplay ecosystem, whether it comes from a World Quest or a Mythic raid boss, by spending Flightstones and Shadowflame Crests.
• There are three categories of gear that are not part of this system. The first is crafted gear, which will be upgraded using recrafting, much the same as it’s done now. The other kind of gear not included in this upgrade system is PvP gear. PvP gearing will continue to work as it did in Dragonflight Season One. The final kind of gear not available for these upgrades is the very top end of gear. Anything that’s at an item level comparable to a Mythic Raid isn’t going to be upgradable. If you want the very best gear and get into the Hall of Fame for the new raid, you’ll still need to earn gear from drops, the same as you do now.
• The most important thing to keep in mind is that everything here is optional. You don’t ever need to upgrade gear with this system. You’ll still see gear drop at the same rates. This system is meant to augment and supplement your gearing journey, not replace it.
• For more details, take a look at the Developer Insights article on this new feature.

CHARACTERS

• Worgen (New Racial): Calm the Wolf – Activate to control your worgen instincts and automatically assume human form when you leave combat. Learned when players learn Two Forms.

CLASSES

• DRUID
  • Balance
    • Take a look at the developer’s notes in the Druid feedback thread.
    • Shooting Stars can no longer be triggered by Stellar Flare.
    • New Talent: Wild Surges – Your chance to critically strike with Wrath and Starfire is increased by 15% and they generate 2 additional Astral Power. This is a choice node with Stellar Flare.
    • Wrath and Starfire generate 10 Astral Power (was 8).
    • Moonfire and Sunfire generate 6 Astral Power (was 2).
    • Stellar Flare generates 10 Astral Power (was 8).
    • Nature’s Balance generates 2 Astral Power every 3 seconds (was 1 every 2 seconds).
    • Starsurge and Starfall damage increased by 20%.
    • Astral Smolder deals damage over 8 seconds (was 4 seconds) and its damage is increased to 40/80% of spell damage done (was 20/40%).
    • Cosmic Rapidity increases the rate at which Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare deal damage by 20% (was 25%).
    • Touch the Cosmos, the Vault of the Incarnates 4-set bonus, now reduces the Astral Power cost of your first Starsurge or Starfall after entering Eclipse by 5 and increases its damage by 20% (was free and 35% increased damage).
    • Soul of the Forest now increases Starfire’s damage and Astral Power generation during Eclipse by 30% for each target hit beyond the first, up to 90% (was 150% bonus to Starfire’s area-of-effect damage)
    • Power of Goldrinn damage increased by 75%.
    • Denizen of the Dream Faerie Dragon damage increased by 20%.
    • Friend of the Fae now increases Arcane and Nature damage by 8% for 20 seconds (was 4% for 30 seconds).
    • Elune’s Guidance now reduces the cost of Starsurge by 8 and Starfall by 10 during Incarnation: Chosen of Elune (was reduces the cost of Starsurge by 5 and Starfall by 8).
    • Radiant Moonlight also increases Fury of Elune’s damage by 50% and now reduces its cooldown by 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
    • Radiant Moonlight increases the damage dealt by New Moon, Half Moon, and Full Moon by 25%.
  • Feral
    • Take a look at the developer’s notes in the Druid feedback thread.
    • Berserk has been redesigned – Go Berserk for 20 seconds. While Berserk: Generate 1 combo point every 1.5 seconds. Finishing moves restore up to 3 combo points generated over the cap. Shred and Rake damage increased by 50%. Combo point generating abilities generate one additional combo point.
    • New Talent: Thrashing Claws – Shred damage is increased by 20% to bleeding targets and Shred and Swipe apply the Bleed damage over time from Thrash. This talent is a choice with Merciless Claws.
    • Shred damage increased by 5%.
    • Thrash damage increased by 20%.
    • Relentless Predator reduces Ferocious Bite Energy cost by 20% (was 40%).
  • Restoration
    • Incarnation: Tree of Life and Convoke the Spirits now properly override each other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
• EVOKER
  • Devastation
    • Developers’ note: We’re thrilled with the reception to Devastation Evoker, and the excitement players have expressed for the playstyle. In Embers of Neltharion, we’re making targeted adjustments to a few key talents to address a nuance of the Dragonrage extension loop where it can be optimal to aggressively cancel and re-cast Disintegrate back to back, in order to maximize the effects of Feed the Flames and Causality. This specific behavior is fairly unintuitive, and the below changes are intended to make fully channeling Disintegrate the more rewarding way to play. Additionally, we’re looking to add more options for area-of-effect damage gameplay with the new talent Raging Inferno, and a redesigned Imminent Destruction.
    • Feed the Flames has been redesigned – Pyre reduces the remaining cooldown of Fire Breath and Eternity Surge by 1 second, or 2 seconds if it was affected by Essence Burst.
    • Causality has been redesigned – While channeling Disintegrate, Fire Breath and Eternity Surge cool down 100% faster.
    • Dragonrage duration increased to 18 seconds (was 14 seconds).
    • Animosity duration extension decreased to 4 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Engulfing Blaze’s cast time increase for Living Flame reduced to 0.3 seconds (was 0.5 seconds).
    • Engulfing Blaze’s damage bonus to Living Flame reduced to 25% (was 40%).
    • Imminent Destruction has been redesigned – Deep Breath causes your empower spells to reach maximum level in 20%/40% less time, and enemies struck by it take 10%/20% more damage from your empower spells for 15 seconds.
    • New Talent: Raging Inferno – Firestorm’s radius is increased by 50%, and Pyre deals 25% increased damage to enemies within your Firestorm.
    • Raging Inferno is located on the talent tree as a choice node with Snapfire.
• HUNTER
  • Developer’s notes: In Embers of Neltharion, we’re looking to update some active abilities that don’t feel impactful while they are active, replace some talents that didn’t work out as well as we had hoped, and also adjust some numbers across a few talents. Several changes have been made across all three specializations that should make some talents more viable and exciting to use.
  • Roar of Sacrifice is now a talent in the core tree as a choice node against Hunter’s Avoidance.
  • Beast Mastery
    • Aspect of the Wild now causes Cobra Shot to hit 2 extra targets (was 1), to a total of 3 targets.
    • Master Handler cooldown reduction value increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds).
    • Snake Bite damage bonus increased to 75% (was 30%).
    • Bloody Frenzy has been redesigned – While Call of the Wild is active, your pets have the Beast Cleave effect, and Cobra Shot applies Serpent Sting to any target hit.
  • Marksmanship
    • Bombardment has been redesigned – Kill Shot now grants you Trick Shots.
    • Legacy of the Windrunners has been slightly redesigned – Aimed Shot now always shoots 2/4 Wind Arrows at your target. Every 24 Wind Arrows fired generates a charge of Aimed Shot and 30 Focus.
    • Wind Arrows from Legacy of the Windrunners have had their damage reduced by 66%.
    • Lethal Shots has been replaced with In the Rhythm.
    • New Talent: In the Rhythm – Fully channeling Rapid Fire now grants you 15% Haste for 6 seconds.
    • Bullseye is now 1 rank talent for the same benefit as the previous 2-rank version.
  • Survival
    • Ruthless Marauder is now a 2 rank talent for the same benefit as the previous 3-rank version.
    • Lunge has new functionality added in addition to its current effect – Each melee auto attack reduces the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb by 1 second.
• MONK
  • Song of Chi-Ji has moved to the class tree on a choice node with Ring of Peace.
  • Mistweaver
    • Developers’ note: Ancient Teachings is a primary piece of Mistweaver’s healing toolkit in Dragonflight, but its previous design was unreliable – a single Rising Sun Kick’s targeting could sometimes determine life or death for an ally. That level of variance between results on healing out of your direct control wasn’t healthy for the specialization. Our goal is to land somewhere in the middle – a single Rising Sun Kick likely shouldn’t save an ally on its own, but it also shouldn’t condemn them either. This new design is more dynamic and capable of handling a variety of healing profiles, and we feel will offer greater reliability for Mistweaver’s consistent healing. We’ll be monitoring feedback on this change as PTR progresses.
    • Ancient Teachings has been redesigned – After casting Essence Font or Faeline Stomp, your Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, and Rising Sun Kick heal up to 5 injured allies within 30 yards for 150% of the damage done, split evenly among them. Lasts 15 seconds.
    • Burst of Life no longer reduces the cooldown or effectiveness of Life Cocoon. Healing increased by 30%.
    • New Talent: Chrysalis – Reduces the cooldown of Life Cocoon by 45 seconds. Located on a choice node with Burst of Life.
      • Developers’ note: Chrysalis has been a staple honor talent for Mistweavers in PvP. We fill that this reliance on this talent has been indicative of Mistweaver’s lack of external cooldowns options in many forms of content. We are moving this to the spec tree to free up an honor talent slot and offer a new PvE relevant option in this choice node.
    • Developers’ note: With a redesign of Ancient Teachings that is more focused on group-wide healing, we are adjusting Vivify’s healing profile slightly to increase Mistweaver’s spot healing.
    • Vivify primary healing increased by 50% (was 20%).
    • Invigorating Mist healing reduced by 12%.
    • Calming Coalesence talent has been removed.
    • Song of Chi-Ji talent has been removed from Mistweaver specialization.
    • Revival and Restoral now properly override each other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
    • Invoke Yu’lon, the Jade Serpent and Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane now properly override each other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
• PALADIN
  • Holy
    • Light’s Hammer and Holy Prism now properly override each other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
• PRIEST
  • Divine Star and Halo should now properly override the other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
  • Holy
    • The bounce radius of Prayer of Mending has been increased by 10 yards.
  • Shadow
    • Developer’s note: Greetings! We have several changes coming to Shadow Priest Talents in Embers of Neltharion that are aimed at addressing spec issues and adding new Talent options.
      • Button bloat: Shadow has more rotational abilities than most other specializations. We’re working to reduce this by having Mind Spike replace Mind Flay and removing Mind Sear.
      • Mind Sear: We feel Mind Sear as a spender was a worthy experiment in Dragonflight, but the gameplay has not been as smooth as we envisioned. We are removing the spell and focusing Shadow’s AoE kit further on Psychic Link.
      • Flooded rotation: There are times in the rotation where several spells are competing to be cast due to proc frequency and overall Insanity generation. We are adjusting some proc and the Insanity generation of several talents for a clearer rotational flow.
      • Lack of distinct builds: With updates to existing talents and some new talents, we aim for more build-defining choices such as investing in cooldowns, damage over time effects, critical damage, or Shadowy Apparitions.
      • PvP: In Dragonflight, Shadow has had access to more instant cast spells through procs and cooldowns than ever before. Because it was difficult to prevent Shadow Priests from scoring kills, we reduced their damage in Season 1. We’ve removed some of the problematic procs and cooldowns moving into 10.1.0, so there is more counterplay to Shadow’s offense. This allows us to ease up on some of the damage nerfs to the spec.
        We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on any changes we’ve made as well as any other thoughts you have about Shadow Priest. Thank you!
    • Mind Sear, Dark Void, Coalescing Shadows, Puppet Master, Harnessed Shadows, Pain of Death, Surge of Darkness, and Damnation have been removed.
    • Shadowy Insight no longer passively grants an additional charge of Mind Blast.
    • Shadowy Insight no longer temporarily increases the maximum charges of Mind Blast when it triggers.
    • Psychic Link now affects Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Death.
    • Psychic Link is now a 1-point talent and has been moved to Mind Sear’s location.
    • Psychic Link has been reworded – Your damaging single target spells deal 40% of their damage to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards. Does not apply to damage from Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch.
    • Auspicious Spirits now causes Shadowy Apparitions to have a chance to generate 2 Insanity instead of always generating 1 Insanity.
    • Maddening Touch now increases the damage of Vampiric Touch by 10%/20% and has a chance to generate 1 Insanity/2 Insanity.
    • Void Torrent generates 24 Insanity over its duration (was 60).
    • Shadow Crash generates 6 Insanity (was 15).
    • Shadow Crash no longer applies Vampiric Touch.
    • Mind Devourer now has a 4%/8% chance to grant a free cast of Devouring Plague (was 10%/20%).
    • Mind Devourer now increases the damage of your next Devouring Plague by 8%/15% when it triggers.
    • Mind Melt no longer reduces the cast time of Mind Blast.
    • Mind Melt is now a 2-point talent.
    • Mind Melt increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast by 10%/20% (was 25%), stacking up to 4 times (was 2).
    • Idol of C’Thun can now trigger from Mind Spike and Void Torrent damage.
    • Idol of C’Thun now spawns a Void Lasher if there are more than 2 targets nearby and otherwise spawns a Void Tendril.
    • Idol of C’Thun Mind Flay damage reduced by 20%.
    • Idol of C’Thun Mind Sear damage increased by 75%.
    • Void Tendril and Void Lasher from Idol of C’Thun generate 15 Insanity over their duration (was 30).
    • Mind Sear from Idol of C’Thun now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
    • The cast speed of Mind Sear from Idol of C’Thun no longer scales with Haste.
    • Mind Flay and Mind Sear from Idol of C’Thun, Echoing Void from Idol of N’Zoth, and Void Torrent now have 5% damage variance.
    • Mind Spike now replaces Mind Flay.
    • Mind Spike damage increased by 15%.
    • Mind Flay: Insanity has been renamed to Surge of Insanity.
    • Surge of Insanity generates 12 Insanity over its duration (was 16).
    • Surge of Insanity now empowers your next Mind Flay or Mind Spike.
    • Surge of Insanity now lasts 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
    • Surge of Insanity can now accumulate up to 2 charges.
    • Mind Flay: Insanity and Mind Spike: Insanity have been added to the Personal Resource Display.
    • Screams of the Void has been redesigned – Devouring Plague causes your Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch to deal damage 40%/80% faster for 3 seconds.
    • Mental Decay now also increases the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch by 2 seconds when Mind Spike is cast.
    • Dark Evangelism can now also be triggered by Mind Spike.
    • Insidious Ire now also affects Void Torrent damage.
    • New Talent: Thought Harvester – Mind Blast gains an additional charge.
    • New Talent: Whispering Shadows – Shadow Crash generates an additional 6 Insanity and applies Vampiric Touch to up to 8 targets it damages.
    • New Talent: Voidtouched – Increases your Devouring Plague damage by 6% and increases your maximum Insanity by 50.
    • New Talent: Mastermind – Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and Mind Spike by 2%/4% and increases their critical strike damage by 13%/25%.
    • New Talent: Phantasmal Pathogen – Shadowy Apparitions deal 75%/150% increased damage to targets affected by your Devouring Plague.
    • New Talent: Mind’s Eye – Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 5.
    • Throes of Pain generates 1 Insanity per rank (was 3 and 5).
    • Ancient Madness is now a 1-point talent.
    • Dark Ascension and Void Eruption should now properly override the other on your Action Bar when swapping talents.
    • Several nodes in the talent tree have changed position.
    • Updated the Shadow Priest starter build.
• SHAMAN
  • Enhancement
    • Developers’ note: A few talent changes have been made in an effort to allow you to opt into a reduction of the frequency and number of keybinds that feel required to play as Enhancement. We’re hoping that the changes to Thorim’s Invocation and Static Accumulation make your Lightning spells your primary spenders and not require you to also use Elemental Blast. Changing Fire Nova to deal Flamestrike damage should help the talent feel more viable when focusing on a physical damage build.
    • Windfury Weapon damage increased by 50%.
    • Forceful Winds damage per stack lowered to 20% (was 40%).
    • Static Accumulation now grants Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning a 10/20% chance to refund Maelstrom Weapon spent on Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning.
    • Thorim’s Invocation now also increases Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning damage by 20%.
    • Elemental Weapons now increases your elemental damage dealt by 2.5% per active weapon imbue.
    • Fire Nova now deals both Fire and Physical spell school damage.

DRAGONRIDING

• Discover 8 new Dragonriding Glyphs in Zaralek Caverns to unlock 2 new Dragonriding traits:
  • Ground Skimming – When dragonriding near the ground, you regenerate 1 Vigor every 30 seconds. This effect does not occur while affected by Thrill of the Skies.
  • Land’s Blessing – Ground Skimming regenerates 1 Vigor every 20 seconds.
• New dragonriding mount: Winding Slitherdrake.
• New races and world quests are available in Zarelek Cavern.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• Critical strikes now deal 150% of base damage and healing in PvP combat (was 175%).
• Precognition (PvP Talent) has been removed. Precognition can now be crafted onto gear via Optional Reagent and counts as an Embellishment.
• CROWD CONTROL DISARMAMENT
  • Take a look at the developer’s notes on these changes in the PvP Updates feedback thread.
  • ITEMS
    • Gladiator’s Distinction (PvP trinket 2-set bonus) no longer provides crowd control reduction.
  • INTERRUPT DURATION CHANGES – The below changes for interrupts are gamewide, not PvP specific.
    • Developers’ note: We feel that this change would have minimal impact in other content due to how creature spells are generally designed, as most kicks are spent on spells that have inherent cooldowns longer than the interrupt duration. We will also be keeping extra consideration of these changes for seasonal dungeons.
    • Druid
      • Skull Bash interrupt duration decreased to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
    • Mage
      • Counter Spell interrupt duration decreased to 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Monk
      • Spear Hand Strike interrupt duration decreased to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
    • Paladin
      • Rebuke interrupt duration decreased to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
    • Rogue
      • Kick interrupt duration decreased to 3 seconds (was 5 seconds).
    • Shaman
      • Wind Shear interrupt duration decreased to 2 seconds (was 3 seconds).
    • Warlock
      • Spell Lock interrupt duration decreased to 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Warrior
      • Pummel interrupt duration decreased to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
  • CROWD CONTROL PVP DURATION CHANGES – The below changes for the noted crowd control abilities are PvP duration changes.
    • Death Knight
      • Blinding Sleet duration decreased to 4 seconds in PvP combat (was 5 seconds).
      • Asphyxiate duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 5 seconds).
    • Demon Hunter
      • Fel Eruption duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
    • Druid
      • Entangling Roots duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Hibernate duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Mass Entanglement duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Ursol’s Vortex duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 10 seconds).
    • Evoker
      • Landslide root duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
    • Hunter
      • Freezing Trap duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Steel Trap duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Scatter Shot duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
      • Intimidation duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 5 seconds).
    • Mage
      • Polymorph duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Mass Polymorph duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Ring of Frost duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
    • Paladin
      • Hammer of Justice duration decreased to 5 seconds in PvP combat (was 6 seconds).
      • Blinding Light duration decreased to 4 seconds in PvP combat (was 5 seconds).
      • Repentance duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Turn Evil duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
    • Priest
      • Mind Control duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Shackle Undead duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Psychic Horror duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
    • Rogue
      • Blind duration decreased to 5 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Sap duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Kidney Shot duration decreased by 1 second per combo point in PvP combat:
        • 1 point – 1 second
        • 2 points – 2 seconds
        • 3 points – 3 seconds
        • 4 points – 4 seconds
        • 5 points – 5 seconds
    • Shaman
      • Earthgrab Totem duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Hex duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
    • Warlock
      • Seduction duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Banish duration decreased to 6 seconds in PvP combat (was 8 seconds).
      • Axe Toss (Stun and Interrupt) duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
      • Grimoire: Felguard (Stun and Interrupt) duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
      • Spell Lock (Grimoire of Sacrifice version) interrupt duration decreased to 5 seconds in PvP combat (was 6 seconds).
    • Warrior
      • Storm Bolt duration decreased to 3 seconds in PvP combat (was 4 seconds).
• CLASSES
  • Developers’ note: In this week’s build you’ll see new PvP talents and changes to some existing ones; over the coming weeks you will continue to see more updates to PvP talents. Keep an eye on the latest PTR patch notes for details of the changes.
  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Blood
      • Heart Strike damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.
      • Blood for Blood (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • EVOKER
    • New PvP Talent: Divide and Conquer – Deep Breath forms curtains of fire, preventing line of sight to enemies outside its walls and burning enemies who walk through them for Fire damage. Lasts 6 seconds.
    • Time Stop cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
    • Swoop Up range increased to 25 yards (was 20 yards).
  • HUNTER
    • Roar of Sacrifice has been removed as a PvP talent.
    • Roar of Sacrifice is now a talent in the core tree as a choice node against Hunter’s Avoidance.
    • Interlope (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Misdirection now causes your pet to redirect the next 3 hostile spells cast on you to themselves. Misdirection cooldown increased by 15 seconds. Your pet must be within 20 yards of the target for spells to be redirected.
      • Developers’ note: We’re still working on this talent, so there may be a few bugs with this ability in this week’s PTR.
    • Dragonscale Armor (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Marksmanship
      • Ranger’s Finesse (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Casting Aimed Shot provides you with Ranger’s Finesse. After gaining 3 stacks of Ranger’s Finesse, increase your next Volley’s range and duration by 50% or your next Bursting Shot’s slow by 50% and its knockback distance. Consuming Ranger’s Finesse reduces the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Turtle by 20 seconds.
        • Developers’ note: We’re still working on this talent, so there may be a few bugs with this ability in this week’s PTR.
    • Survival
      • New PvP Talent: Sticky Tar Bomb – Throw a Sticky Tar Bomb that coats your target’s weapons with tar, disarming them for 4 seconds. After 4 seconds, Sticky Tar Bomb explodes onto enemies within 10 yards. Other enemies that are hit by the explosion are affected by Sticky Tar Bomb but this effect cannot spread further.
      • Sticky Tar (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • MAGE
    • Netherwind Armor (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Prismatic Cloak (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Arcane
      • Arcane Missiles damage increased by 5% in PvP combat.
      • Kleptomania (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Unleash a flurry of disruptive magic onto your target, stealing a beneficial magic effect every .5 seconds for 4 seconds. Castable while moving, but movement speed is reduced by 40% while channeling.
      • Mass Invisibility (PvP Talent) now has a 10 second duration, breaks if any actions are taken, and replaces Invisibility when learned.
      • Arcane Empowerment (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Fire
      • World of Flames (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Empower Flamestrike, dealing up to 200% more damage based on enemies’ distance to the center of Flamestrike.
      • Glass Cannon (PvP Talent) now increases damage of Fireball and Scorch by 100% (was 40%) and now also increases the damage of Mastery: Ignite. Additionally, the maximum health reduction is now 20% (was 15%).
    • Frost
      • New PvP Talent: Icy Feet – When your Frost Nova or Water Elemental’s Freeze is dispelled or removed, become immune to snares for 3 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds.
      • Chilled to the Bone (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • MONK
    • Mistweaver
      • Chrysalis (PvP Talent) – Removed from PvP talents. Located on a choice node with Burst of Life on the Mistweaver specialization tree.
      • Thunderous Focus Tea (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Thunder Focus Tea can now additionally cause Crackling Jade Lightning’s knockback immediately or cause Roll and Chi Torpedo to refund a charge on use and heal you.
      • New PvP Talent: Fae Accord – Faeline Stomp’s cooldown is reduced by 20 seconds. Enemies struck by Faeline Stomp are snared by 70% for 8 seconds.
  • PALADIN
    • Holy
      • Flash of Light healing increased by 50% for Holy Paladins in PvP combat (was 25%).
      • Holy Light healing increased by 100% in PvP combat (was 75%).
      • Light’s Grace (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • PRIEST
    • Holy
      • The bounce radius of Prayer of Mending has been increased by 10 yards.
      • Prayer of Mending healing increased by 50% in PvP combat.
      • Cardinal Mending (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Discipline
      • Power Word: Barrier effectiveness increased by 100% in PvP combat.
      • Dome of Light has been removed.
    • Shadow
      • Mind Spike damage is now increased by 25% in PvP combat (was reduced by 25%).
      • Vampiric Touch damage is no longer reduced in PvP combat (was reduced by 5%).
      • Void Origins (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • ROGUE
    • Dagger in the Dark (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Each second while Stealth is active, nearby enemies within 12 yards take an additional 2% damage from you for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 6 times.
    • Subtlety
      • Distracting Mirage (PvP Talent) slow value has been increased to 60% (was 30%).
  • SHAMAN
    • Seasoned Winds (PvP Talent) is now available to all specializations (was Elemental and Enhancement).
    • Seasoned Winds now lasts 18 seconds and can stack up to 3 times.
    • Static Field Totem (PvP Talent) is now available to all specializations (was Elemental and Enhancement).
    • Enhancement
      • Ethereal Form (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Restoration
      • New PvP Talent: Rain Dance – Healing Rain is now instant, 20% more effective, and costs 30% less mana.
      • Cleansing Waters (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • WARRIOR
    • Warbringer (PVP Talent) damage reduced by 65%. Range increased to 20 yard cone.
    • Rebound (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Spell Reflection reflects the next 2 incoming spells cast on you and reflected spells deal 50% extra damage to the attacker. Spell Reflection’s cooldown is increased by 10 seconds.
    • Arms
      • Duel (PvP Talent) – Characters in a duel are now highlighted for each other.
    • Protection
      • Thunderstruck (PvP talent) duration increased to 4 seconds, now obeys Diminishing Returns and breaks on damage.
      • Sword and Board (PvP Talent) has been removed.

PROFESSIONS

• New Optional Reagents are available for upgrading items to a higher item level.
  • Developers’ note: Crafting UI doesn’t currently display these new reagent slots correctly.
  • Non-Spark gear (Blue)
    • Titan Training Matrix V
    • Enchanted Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crest
  • Spark gear (Purple)
    • Enchanted Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crest
    • Enchanted Aspect’s Shadowflame Crest
• Elemental Lariat duration changed to 5 seconds (was 12 seconds); increased by 1 second per elemental gem equipped.
  • Developers’ note: The Elemental Lariat has been one of the strongest embellishments due to its ability to grant a large amount of your desired stat based on a condition that is easy to satisfy. We knew that we wanted to bring its power back on the season boundary, but was important to us that player’s investment in acquiring the item or the recipe was respected. Rather than reduce its power directly, we opted to redesign the passive to bring it in line with all other Jewelcrafting effects by scaling an axis of power with the quantity of gems slotted. The net result is that the Elemental Lariat will be less powerful than it is now earlier in a player’s gearing phase, while preserving its place as a throughput powerhouse when players begin to round off their gear set with added sockets. We look forward to hearing your feedback.
• Tooltip size for Recipe Unlearned has been increased.
• Players can now purchase Crests of Honor and Trophies of Conquest from PvP quartermasters in Valdrakken. These tokens cost 525, 700, and 875 of their respective currencies and are used as Optional Reagents when crafting armor and accessories of identical costs. Items enhanced with these reagents will gain the ability to scale to their appropriate PvP item level in Arenas and Battlegrounds.
  • Developers’ note: Our goals with this addition are to enable a broader selection of embellishments to be viable choices for players of all ranks, offer more opportunities to customize secondary stats via the missive system, and enable the use of Tinkers in Unrated Battlegrounds without concerns of the power discrepancy.
• Last season’s Crimson Combatant recipes can now be purchased from Korganar Smolderforge in the Gladiator’s Refuge for 3 Marks of Honor each.
• Shadowlands scaled items can now be disenchanted in Chromie Time.
• Herb nodes have been placed in the Zaralek Cavern. Mining, Fishing, and Skinning will be coming in future weeks of the PTR.
• Profession recipes have been added for the following professions but not all are fully enabled. Sources and recipe costs are still being worked on. You can find these on the temporary crafting vendors.
  • ALCHEMY
    • Draconic Phial Cauldron
    • Stinky Bright Potion
    • Transmute: Dracothyst
    • Cauldron of Extracted Putresence
  • BLACKSMITHING
    • Hellsteel Alloy
    • Hellsteel Belt Buckle
    • Hellsteel Impact Buckler
    • Hellsteel Bunker Buster (This name will change)
    • Heat-Resistant Rescue Ring
  • COOKING
    • Rocks on the Rocks
    • Charitable Cheddar
    • Roland (Battle Pet)
  • ENCHANTING
    • Shadowflame Wreathe
    • Spore Tender
    • Spore Keeper’s Baton
    • Illusory Adornment: Spores
    • Titan Training Matrix V
    • Enchanted Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crest
    • Enchanted Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crest
    • Enchanted Aspect’s Shadowflame Crest
  • ENGINEERING
    • Engineering skill up treasures are now in the world!
    • Polarity Bomb
    • EZ-Thro Polarity Bomb
    • Quackomancy Cannon
  • INSCRIPTION
    • Winding Slitherdrake: Blue and Silver Armor
    • Winding Slitherdrake: Yellow and Silver Armor
    • Winding Slitherdrake: Curved Chin Horn
    • Winding Slitherdrake: White Hair
    • Winding Slitherdrake: Small Finned Throat
    • Glyph of the Chosen Glaive
    • Glyph of the Heaved Armament
    • Vantus Rune: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible
    • Hissing Rune
    • Contract: Loamm Niffen
  • LEATHERWORKING
    • Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards
    • Spore Colony Shoulderguards
    • Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch
    • Lambent Armor Kit
    • Obsidian Combatant gear
  • TAILORING
    • Spore-Infused Combat Bandage
    • Reserve Parachute
    • Undulating Sporecloak
    • Explorer’s Banner of Comradery
    • Enormous Ball of Yarn

QUESTS

• Briggul has her hands full with a star snail that is too big to race. Do you have what it takes to train him up? Speak to Briggul in Glimmerogg to start the quest “Come Snail Away.”

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

• Talent Loadouts can now be linked to chat through the Share menu.
• Updated special resource art and animations for the following classes:
  • Arcane Mage
  • Death Knight
  • Feral Druid
  • Windwalker Monk
  • Paladin
  • Rogue
  • Warlock
• Updated Experience and Reputation gain animations and effects.
• A consistency pass has been done on scroll bars in art and functionality.
• EDIT MODE
  • Cast Bar now has an option to show the cast time.
  • Minimap size can now be adjusted.
  • The Looking for Group Eye has been added to the Micro Menu frame, and its size can be adjusted.
  • Raid Frames will now show more buffs depending on the size of the frame, up to a maximum of 7 (was capped at 3).
  • Frames should no longer drag other elements that weren’t manually snapped to them.
  • The Experience and Reputation bars have been renamed to the more generic Status Bar 1 and 2, but will still be labeled Experience Bar for leveling characters.
  • Added a slash command for accessing Edit Mode: /editmode.
• OPTIONS
  • Added an option to disable chat.
  • Added a keybind option to stop ongoing Text-to-Speech.
  • The Interface > Raid Frames section now shows a preview of your raid frames display.
  • A hover state has been added to all options so you can more easily tell which line you’re looking at.

The ability to invite opposing faction players to a guild is available for testing on the Embers of Nelthation (10.1) PTR.

Here are a few things we’d like to bring attention to for this test:

• We hope to bring this feature to the game in the Embers of Neltharion update but depending on the extent of issues uncovered during public testing, we may need to delay it in order to provide the best possible experience. We’re enabling a “work in progress” version of the functionality at the outset of this PTR to give us the most possible time to identify and address issues.
• This is a focused implementation, aimed at allowing players who have been enjoying Cross-Faction Instances the ability to join the same guild as their opposite-faction friends and benefit from conveniences like shared chat and guild repairs.
• Guilds are still affiliated with either the Horde or the Alliance, depending on the faction of the guild leader. Guild achievements and guild vendors, for example, will still reflect the guild’s primary faction. Opposite faction members may benefit from unlocked shared perks but may be unable to contribute to certain achievements (e.g. we would not expect Alliance members of a Horde guild to be able to contribute progress towards the “Alliance Slayer” guild achievement).
• There is a current known bug where you are unable to send mail to opposing faction guildmates. This will be fixed in a future update.
• Please use this forum thread to share your feedback/issues experienced on joining opposite-faction guilds, chat, etc.

This is our first step of potentially several in publicly testing this long-awaited feature, so keep an eye out for updates and we look forward to reading your experiences in this thread throughout the PTR cycle.

There are some changes coming to Feral and Balance Druids in Embers of Neltharion, and we’re here to walk you through them and the goals behind them. Let’s get started!

Balance

In Embers of Neltharion, we’re looking to address some of the pain points and unintuitive aspects of Balance’s gameplay. The 10.0 set armor bonus is also rotating out, and we’re keeping an eye on how the spec plays without it. For this round of changes, we’re targeting three specific aspects of Balance’s gameplay:

1. Stellar Flare and its interactions are so strong that it is best to take it in all scenarios and maintain it on large numbers of targets, which is demanding to keep track of and makes Balance’s ramp at the beginning of fights very long.
2. Eclipse and effects that trigger on entering eclipse are so strong that they incentivize Druids to use Lunar Eclipse in all situations because it is faster to trigger.
3. There are enough bonuses to Starfire splash damage that it’s optimal to target an enemy next to your focus target.

Addressing these gameplay factors will require significantly reducing the power of some of Balance’s most impactful talents and bonuse s. We want Balance to be enjoyable to play and powerful when played well and in scenarios that it is well suited for, so we will be buffing Balance elsewhere to make up for those power reductions and keeping an eye on its power and tuning.

Stellar Flare

Stellar Flare’s power is driven significantly by its interactions with talents like Shooting Stars, Cosmic Rapidity, and Waning Twilight. These interactions are strong enough that it’s taken for all fights. Our goal is for Stellar Flare to be an optional talent that you’d choose if you’re interested in a DoT-focused build. It should be most effective against small numbers of targets.

We are removing Stellar Flare’s interaction with Shooting Stars. This will significantly decrease how essential it is for generating Astral Power, especially in many-target scenarios. To compensate, we’re increasing Astral Power generation from other sources and boosting finisher damage.

We like that Stellar Flare makes it possible to maintain the Waning Twilight bonus 100% of the time on affected targets. However, we’d like it to be easier for other builds to make use of Waning Twilight, so we are extending the duration of Astral Smolder’s DoT and creating a new choice node talent with Stellar Flare that increases Wrath & Starfire Astral Power generation and crit, making it easier to trigger Astral Smolder.

Entering Eclipse and 10.0 Set Armor

The 10.0 Set Armor 4pc bonus is changing from a free finisher dealing 35% extra damage to a 5 AP discounted finisher dealing 20% extra damage. This change will make Balance’s set bonus power more comparable to other classes. It’s also the main change we’re making to reduce the importance of entering Eclipse as often as possible. If it’s still optimal to use Lunar Eclipse in every scenario we’ll investigate further changes.

Starfire AOE

Several effects increase the damage Starfire deals to nearby targets during Eclipse, even pushing it above its primary target damage. To change this, we are changing Soul of the Forest to instead increase Starfire’s damage and Astral Power generation against multiple targets.

The Rest

In addition to the above, we’re making some targeted changes to underpowered or underselected talents to make them more competitive, especially Balance’s endcap talents.

Change List

• Shooting Stars can no longer be triggered by Stellar Flare.
• New Talent: Wild Surges. Your chance to critically strike with Wrath and Starfire is increased by 15% and they generate 2 additional Astral Power. This is a choice node with Stellar Flare.
• Wrath and Starfire generate 10 Astral Power (up from 8)
• Moonfire and Sunfire generate 6 Astral Power (up from 2)
• Stellar Flare generates 10 Astral Power (up from 8)
• Nature’s Balance generates 2 Astral Power every 3 seconds (up from 1 every 2)
• Starsurge and Starfall damage increased by 20%.
• Astral Smolder deals damage over 8 seconds (up from 4) and its damage is increased to 40/80% of spell damage done (up from 20/40%).
• Cosmic Rapidity increases the rate at which Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare deal damage by 20% (down from 25%).
• Touch the Cosmos, the 10.0 (4) Set Armor bonus, now reduces the Astral Power cost of your first Starsurge or Starfall after entering Eclipse by 5 and increases its damage by 20% (was free and 35% increased damage).
• Soul of the Forest now increases Starfire’s damage and AP generation during Eclipse by 30% for each target hit beyond the first, up to 90%. (Was 150% bonus to Starfire’s AOE damage)
• Power of Goldrinn damage increased by 75%.
• Denizen of the Dream: Faerie Dragon damage increased by 20%.
• Friend of the Fae now increases Arcane and Nature damage by 8% for 20 seconds (was 4% for 30 seconds).
• Elune’s Guidance now reduces the cost of Starsurge by 8 and Starfall by 10 during Incarnation: Chosen of Elune (was reduces the cost of Starsurge by 5 and Starfall by 8).
• Radiant Moonlight also increases Fury of Elune’s damage by 50% and now reduces its cooldown by 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
• Radiant Moonlight increases the damage dealt by New Moon, Half Moon, and Full Moon by 25%.

Feral

Berserk

Before Embers of Neltharion, Berserk worked by restoring combo points after finishers and making Rake and Shred deal damage as if you were stealthed. This seems simple enough, and it accomplishes the goal of accelerating the rate you can cast finishers and deal damage. But under the surface, it requires a bit of cross-referencing other talents (like Pouncing Strikes) to figure out what it’s doing, and an advanced degree in Feral Science to determine the best abilities to use in different situations. The value of generating exactly 3 combo points with each builder can make it optimal to ignore abilities like Rake and Thrash entirely, which is unintuitive and makes the Berserk rotation pretty repetitive.

In Embers of Neltharion, Berserk is changing to this:

Go Berserk for 20 sec. While Berserk: Generate 1 combo point every 1.5 sec. Finishing moves restore up to 3 combo points generated over the cap. Shred and Rake damage increased by 50%. Combo point generating abilities generate one additional combo point.

The new version of Berserk aims to keep the excitement of Berserk’s accelerated rotation with frequent finishing moves, while fully rewarding you for maintaining Rake and Thrash’s bleeds and generally using the same builders you’re used to in the rest of your rotation. Since the steady flow of combo points can make it easy to go over 5, using a finishing move now restores up to 3 of those excess combo points so they aren’t wasted. If you have 4 combo points, cast a builder that crits and generates 3, then cast Ferocious Bite, you’ll have 2 left over afterward.

This update also allows some talents that lost a lot of power during Berserk to maintain their effectiveness, such as Bloodtalons, Sudden Ambush, and Lunar Inspiration. Berserk still increases Shred and Rake’s damage to retain some of Berserk’s particular effectiveness against single targets.

Tuning

This is a big change, and we’ll be keeping an eye on tuning to retain Feral’s current power and specialties. Since Shred is losing some damage in Berserk, we’re increasing its damage overall to give back some of that power without changing Shred’s role in your rotation. To make maintaining Thrash more worthwhile in both Feral’s single target and AOE rotations, we are increasing the damage of its initial hit and its bleed.

We are keeping an eye on Berserk’s power overall so that too much of your damage isn’t focused in your Berserk window. For instance, in 10.0.7 we changed Berserk: Frenzy to shift some power out of your Berserk window. In Embers of Neltharion, we are reducing the effect of Relentless Predator, as it provided more Energy than we like within Berserk specifically.

Thrashing Claws

One of the things we’re always looking for opportunities to do is give players tools to play less complicated versions of classes they love. With 3 DoTs to maintain, Feral can be an intimidating class. The new Thrashing Claws talent causes your normal single target and multi-target attacks to also apply the bleed from Thrash, meaning you don’t have to press Thrash at all. It may not be for everyone, but we hope you’ll tell us what you think if you try it.

Oh, and One More Thing…

Feral Druids are one of several classes that are getting updated resource visuals in Embers of Neltharion. Check out these combo points!

Change List

• Berserk has been redesigned – Go Berserk for 20 sec. While Berserk: Generate 1 combo point every 1.5 sec. Finishing moves restore up to 3 combo points generated over the cap. Shred and Rake damage increased by 50%. Combo point generating abilities generate one additional combo point.
• New talent: Thrashing Claws: Shred deals 20% increased damage to bleeding targets and and Shred and Swipe apply the Bleed damage over time from Thrash. This is a choice node with Merciless Claws.
• Shred damage increased by 5%.
• Thrash damage increased by 20%.
• Relentless Predator now reduces the Energy costs of Ferocious Bite by 20% (down from 40%).

Greetings PvPers of the Dragon Isles!

In the Embers of Neltharion PTR, you’ll see a number of PvP changes, and we want to discuss and provide context around these changes. We’ve felt that the game pacing in Dragonflight has been close to what we’d like, apart from having health spikes that are too large in burst windows. The changes below are decisions we’re looking to make alongside each other, to move even closer to game pacing that we’re happy with.

Critical Strike PvP Value

At the beginning of Shadowlands, we increased the Critical strike damage and healing value to 175% from 150% in PvP (from the normal 200%). We will be reverting this change, so the Critical Strike value will be 150% in PvP to address our burst concern.

We recognize this will slow down game pacing, and we will keep an eye on it to ensure it isn’t too slow. Alongside class changes, we intend to adjust the primary stat gain from Gladiator’s Distinction as a tuning knob to keep PvP pacing in a healthy place.

Crowd Control

In September, we published a post that both discussed and recognized crowd control continues to be a point of concern for players in PvP. We shared that we would continue to analyze and evaluate how crowd control plays in PvP and discussed some other options for future patches to further address the concern of crowd control, one being adjusting the PvP duration on individual abilities that may have not been changed for years.

In the Embers of Neltharion patch, players will see the first step of this, as we are making targeted adjustments for crowd control durations in PvP. Our general guideline was to reduce the PvP duration of most Crowd Control abilities so that nothing should ever go beyond 6 seconds when modified (except when modified by Evoker’s Oppressing Roar). We want crowd control to remain meaningful when coordinated well, while still allowing for reasonable counterplay opportunities by the opponent.

In addition to the typical crowd control abilities that have diminishing returns, we are adjusting the interrupt duration of some abilities that are not PvP specific. We feel that this change would have minimal impact in other content due to how creature spells are generally designed, as most kicks are spent on spells that have inherent cooldowns longer than the interrupt duration. We will also be keeping extra consideration of these changes for seasonal dungeons.

We evaluated different crowd control types and each ability within each category to determine a healthy duration for them. We do not want all similar crowd control types to necessarily be unified and want to ensure there’s unique flavor to class abilities and what makes sense within their overall kit. We’ll keep a full list of the changes in our PTR Development Notes 371.

In conjunction with these changes, Gladiator’s Distinction will no longer provide 10% CC reduction and the new season’s professions items will no longer grant 5% CC reduction.

We are continually having discussions regarding crowd control in PvP to make targeted adjustments that will be healthy for the game’s state and look forward to your feedback on this.

PvP Talents

We’ve been excited to watch players utilize the new talent trees that came in Dragonflight. In previous interviews, we hinted at a PvP talent refresh in Dragonflight similar to the refresh that occurred in Shadowlands’ Chains of Domination update, and you’ll see the start of the refresh in the Embers of Neltharion PTR. Our goal with this update is to bring new and exciting talents into the game and also revitalize existing talents that may be undervalued as the game has evolved.

In this week’s build you’ll see new PvP talents and changes to some existing ones; over the coming weeks you will continue to see more updates to PvP talents. Keep an eye on the latest PTR Development Notes 371 for details of the changes.

Precognition

In Dragonflight, we introduced a new PvP talent, Precognition. We have been happy with how the mechanic has played out in practice. However, we feel that taking one of the three PvP talent slots has been too expensive. To solve this problem, we are removing Precognition as a PVP Talent and we’re going to be making it available as an Optional Reagent that can be used to apply the Precognition effect to crafted gear. This Optional Reagent will count as an Embellishment.

We recognize it has been challenging to play a healer in PvP, and we think the Crowd Control and Precognition changes are a step in the right direction to make playing healers a more enjoyable experience for the average player.

We look forward to seeing how the above changes play out and are eager to receive feedback on them throughout the Embers of Neltharion PTR cycle. We’ll have a Play with the Blues event later in the PTR cycle, for more focused playtesting, so keep an eye out for communication about that soon.