Hiya!
Here are this week’s PTR notes:

CLASSES

• Death Knight
  • Class Sets
    • Blood
      • 4-piece: When you take damage, you have a chance equal to 100% of your Parry chance to lash out, Heart Striking your attacker. Dancing Rune Weapon now summons 2 Rune Weapons.
• Druid
  • Restoration
    • All healing abilities increased by 10%.
    • All damage abilities increased by 10%.
    • Lifebloom healing over time increased by 12% and bloom heal increased by 20%.
    • Nourish healing (Talent) increased by 15%.
    • Overgrowth (Talent) mana cost reduced by 60%.
    • Inner Peace (Talent) now has an additional effect – While channeling Tranquility, you take 20% reduced damage and are immune to knockbacks.
    • Germination (Talent) now has an additional effect – Rejuvenation duration increased by 2 seconds.
• Mage
  • Class Sets
    • Arcane
      • 2-piece: Enemies affected by Touch of the Magi take 10% increased Arcane damage (was 18%).
    • Fire
      • 4-piece: Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames now recharge 50% faster while Combustion is active (was 100%).
• Paladin
  • Ashen Hallow (Venthyr Ability) healing reduced by 15% for all specializations.
  • Holy
    • Ashen Hallow, Hammer of Wrath, Judgment, and Holy Shock damage reduced by 12%.
    • Avenging Wrath (Rank 3) has been removed.
  • Class Sets
    • Protection
      • 4-piece: When you take damage, you have a chance equal to 100% of your Block chance to cast Judgment at your attacker.
• Priest
  • Holy
    • All healing abilities increased by 10%.
    • All damage abilities increased by 15%.
    • Symbol of Hope cooldown reduced to 3 minutes (was 5 minutes) and channel time reduced to 4 seconds (was 5 seconds).
    • Holy Word: Chastise damage increased by 25%.
    • Prayer Circle (Talent) now also reduces the mana cost of Prayer of Healing by 25%.
    • Guardian Angel (Talent) now has an additional effect – When Guardian Spirit saves the target from death, it does not expire.
    • Afterlife (Talent) now has an additional effect – As a Spirit of Redemption, you may cast Resurrection, which ends the Spirit of Redemption.
    • Binding Heal (Talent) has been removed.
    • Cosmic Ripple (Talent) has been moved and replaces Binding Heal (Talent) on row 40.
    • New Talent (Row 30): Binding Heals – 20% of Heal or Flash Heal healing on other targets also heals you.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS

• Mists of Tirna Scithe
  • Drust Spiteclaw’s Bloodletting now has a minimum range, and is only used on players at least 10 yards away.
  • Drust Spiteclaw’s Dying Breath now has a much smaller area of effect. A warning visual and delay has been added to allow time to play around it.
  • Dying Breath debuff duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds), and is no longer automatically removed upon leaving combat.
    • Developers’ note: We hoped to see Dying Breath used for high-risk/high-reward plays, but players have found that the risk generally outweighed the reward. This update should make the risk more manageable & make the ability more interesting to play around.
• Mythic+
  • Affixes
    • New Seasonal Affix: Encrypted – Enemies throughout the dungeon possess relics of the First Ones. Destroy the relics to summon the First Ones’ Automa and gain powerful bonuses, based on the order in which they were destroyed.

ITEMS AND REWARDS

• Mechagon Peacekeeper, Rusty Mechanocrawler, and Scrapforged Mechaspider can now soar into the sky with their unique flying animation.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• New Arena: Maldraxxus Coliseum
  • Developers’ note: Maldraxxus Coliseum will be the only arena available in the queue on the PTR for testing.

@AlteyaArt 💀🔥

@ingstad4 Downright cozy.

@ReallyAceryl You'll have to bring it up with Arthas, and that guy is picky...

@druidsfire @TerranGregory And Outland? A glorious omelet of battle.

@Niicklas_TV @TerranGregory Only the mages have as much magic.

When peons dream, they dream about:

Go behind the scenes with @TerranGregory and find out how the original Black Temple cinematic was created. Watch i… https://t.co/zEnHOcR6f9

Might be safer to catch the next one... https://t.co/PJnRU1FUAX

With a patch after the Eternity’s End content update, we will no longer support the operation of the WoW Companion App on 32-bit Android operating systems.

If you’re uncertain whether or not this applies to you, the Eternity’s End content update for the WoW Companion App will include an in-app notification for 32-bit Android users. Again, our support for these older Android operating systems will cease with a patch after the Eternity’s End content update.

Thank you.

For your question about Resto Shaman, the driving design intent was to make a healing set bonus that felt fundamentally like Resto Shaman. Chain heal and totems are very core Shaman spells. While Chain Heal has fallen a bit out of favor in Shadowlands, this is due in part to how Legendaries and Covenant-related systems have altered the healing-per-mana of Resto Shaman spells. From a design perspective, that means there’s an extra roadblock to making a cool Chain Heal set bonus, but it doesn’t necessarily mean Chain Heal is off the table.

The first iteration of the resto shaman set bonus tried to build an engine around Chain Heal and Spirit Link Totem, but in addition to specific spirit link timing concerns, that would have had the issue of either pushing Chain Heal to the front of Shaman heals at all times, or not being enough to overcome the HPM concerns and ending up unused, depending on how tuning worked out. So we moved towards a bonus that builds an engine around critically hitting, which synergizes with the core mechanic of Resurgence, and rewards you for casting Chain Heal some amount of the time.

Broadly, players understandably look at set bonuses through the lens of how they’re currently playing the game. Sometimes a designer is trying to accent part of their class’s identity that has fallen out of favor, rather than something that already feels important to them. That distinction can lead to that ‘disconnected’ feeling. But ultimately, we all hope for the same thing in the end - fun gameplay that resonates with our class’s core fantasies.

Tambard:

Where are The Violet Eye items?

You’ll see these (and a number of other things) become available when Black Temple unlocks.

Burning Crusade Classic Patch Notes

Version 2.5.3
January 18, 2022

Content

The Black Temple

Defeat the Betrayer himself—Illidan Stormrage—atop the Black Temple.

• Raid bosses: 9 (High Warlord Naj’entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, Teron Gorefiend, Gurtogg Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, The Illidari Council, Illidan Stormrage)
• Level: 70
• Location: The Black Temple, Shadowmoon Valley

Improve your standing with the Ashtongue Deathsworn to earn rewards from Okuno inside the Black Temple.

The Battle for Mount Hyjal

Preserve the outcome of the pivotal Battle for Mount Hyjal and ensure the demon Archimonde meets his fate.

• Raid bosses: 5 (Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz’rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde)
• Level: 70
• Location: Caverns of Time, Tanaris

Improve your standing with the Scale of the Sands to earn rewards from Indormi in the Caverns of time.

Raid Attunements
Those who wish to brave the two new raid instances must complete the required attunement quests first. The required quests must be completed once per character. All new raid content will unlock at 3:00 p.m. PST on Thursday, January 27.

Epic Gems
Epic gem Jewelcrating Designs will be available from Indormi in the Caverns of Time. Epic gems can be obtained from Battle for Mount Hyjal through mining (requires 375 mining skill), and as rare drops from Black Temple.

Netherwing Daily Quests
Earn Netherwing reputation through daily quests in Shadowmoon Valley. Collect Netherwing eggs to speed up reputation gains. Epic Netherdrake mounts will be available to players that reach Exalted reputation (requires Artisan Riding skill).

Burning Crusade Arena Season 3

The week of January 18, with the weekly reset in each region, Arena Season 3 has begun. The matchmaker has been adjusted to increase the range of possible opponents. This will help match players of different matchmaking levels more quickly. As before, teams with similar ratings who queue at the same will be prioritized to match against each other.

Updates

• Bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep now drop one additional class set token for a total of 3.
• Bosses in Magtheridon’s Lair and Gruul’s Lair now drop an additional loot token for a total of 3.
• The Lurker Below, Morogrim Tidewalker, A’lar, and High Astromancer Solarian have had their loot tables updated to their final state, which includes additional drops for each boss, and in some cases, new items.
• All dungeon bosses now have a chance to drop epic gems in Heroic difficulty.
• New Darkmoon cards now have a chance to drop.
• Warlocks can now learn to summon an Incubus by completing a new questline:
  • In Undercity, speak to Carendin Halgar.
  • In Orgrimmar, speak to Gan’rul Bloodeye.
  • In Stormwind, speak to Gakin the Darkbinder.
• The Consortium vendor now sells: Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Striking.
• The Honor Hold and Thrallmar vendor now sells: Pattern: Netherscale Ammo Pouch.
• The Lower City vendor now sells: Enchant Ring - Stats and Pattern: Quiver of a Thousand Feathers.
• Mind Quickening Gem is no longer usable in Arenas. The trinket is unchanged in all other areas of play.
• The following items are no longer usable inside Arenas:
  • Nigh-Invulnerability Belt
  • Net-o-Matic Projector
  • Dazzling Longsword
  • Silent Fang
  • Skull of Impending Doom

User Interface

• You can now select multiple activities when searching for groups in the Looking for More UI.
• After listing your group in the Looking for Group UI, the UI will now automatically search for other groups interested in the same activities.
• In the Looking for Group UI, the entire dropdown body can now be clicked to open the dropdown.
• You may now report players searched via /who using the right-click menu.
• Added a more descriptive error message when attempting to transfer a character who is an Arena team captain from one realm to another.
• Fixed an issue that caused Duels to end after 15 minutes.
• Added a “have materials” filter in the Profession UI.
• Fixed an issue that caused interface errors to appear when using the character Unstuck service.
• Fixed a bug where the player model in the character sheet could get stuck rotating when the player moves the mouse.

Bug Fixes

• Made some improvements to player pathing during fear to reduce situations where players end up outside or under terrain.
• Fixed a bug that caused certain flight paths to incorrectly take players through mountains and other terrain.
• Fixed an issue where Alliance players who died in Ogri’la were teleported to the incorrect graveyard after releasing.
• Fixed a bug preventing dialogue options from working correctly in several quests that offer replacement quest items from the quest giver, such as “The Hawk’s Essence”.
• Fixed an issue that caused mounted footstep/hoof sounds to play at incorrect speeds for certain mounts.
• Fixed an incorrect tooltip for the Spell Reflection ability that the Coilfang Serpentguard in Serpentshrine Cavern cast on themselves that indicates that it reflects 4 spells when it actually reflects all spells for its duration.
• Resolved an issue where Renataki of the Thousand Blades’ Thousand Blades ability could register an unintentionally huge number of hits and cause performance issues. It’s meant to be a figurative Thousand Blades, not a literal thousand. Relax, Renataki.
• Fixed multiple issues with Succubus creature animations.
• Fixed multiple issues with Worgen creature animations.
• Fixed an issue that caused belts to sometimes vanish when equipping an unequipping items.
• Resolved an issue that caused human models to use the incorrect animations when slowed.
• Some tamable pets, such as Rip-Blade Ravager, will now correctly change colors randomly when they are resummoned by the Hunter.
  • Developers’ note: This will only affect pets tamed after the launch of this patch.
• Fixed an issue where the Paladin Trainer Noellene in Eversong Woods doesn’t show up when tracking Class Trainers.
• The Gladiator’s Spellblade now displays the appropriate textures.
• Fixed an issue that caused Shaman weapon enhancements displayed their visual effects twice on player weapons.
• The Aurora Cowl item is no longer missing its model.
• Fixed an issue where Shadow Word: Death could damage the caster when a low-level target is killed by the spell.
• Fixed an issue where certain channeled auras, such as Mind Flay from Fel Eye Stalks, were not stacking correctly.
• Effects that increase damage taken from spells by a flat amount, such as Shadow Resonance, will now work correctly with stacking damage-over-time auras.
• Snakes created by Snake Trap will now correctly not trigger most “On Kill” procs.
  • Developers’ note: Some “On Kill” effects, such as Spirit Tap, will still correctly be triggered by slaying the snakes.
• Fixed an issue that caused loot sparkles to not properly scale up in size for larger creatures. Now please – loot the hounds.

We have one update to the patch that we want to make very clear. Previously in testing, we were adjusting the Haste that Mind Quickening Gem provided across the board. We’ve narrowed the scope of the adjustment:

• Mind Quickening Gem is no longer usable in Arenas. The trinket is unchanged in all other areas of play.

We believe we’ve identified the issue that could cause Xy’mox to become unkillable, and have applied a hotfix. Please let us know if you encounter any further issues. Thanks for your patience!

Apologies for the issue with Xy’mox. We haven’t seen this behavior in testing and are currently unable to reproduce it internally, but we’re looking into potential causes and will attempt to get a fix in before the weekend if possible.

The boss has a much slower attack rate than most, so it hits harder to compensate. Average DPS should be a fair bit lower than an end boss. That said we’re open to making adjustments if it feels oppressively bursty.

We have a hotfix in the works for the core damage issue on Vigilant Guardian. Thanks for your patience!

Please use this thread for feedback and bug reports regarding this encounter, or related issues. Noting the nature of your group (Mythic guild premade, PUG, etc.) is helpful, as are any logs. Thank you to everyone who has come out to help test!

A few things to check off the list. 📝 https://t.co/qVx40Jv3WY