Quick update for Kill Shot. We’ve sent a hotfix that will temporarily remove the spell visual from Kill Shot. This should prevent the crash for now while we work on a full fix. Frost Trap may still lead to crashes, however.

Greetings,

Just wanted to add a few other issues that we are aware of and are working on fixes for:

• Players may experience frequent crashes when using Kill Shot or Frost Trap. Please avoid using these spells for the time being.
• When you are piloting a Demolisher vehicle and it is destroyed, you may not be able to use all Demolisher abilities when piloting another Demolisher vehicle.
  • As a workaround, relogging will restore the ability to use all Demolisher abilities
• Long cooldowns such as Heroism and Bloodlust are not currently resetting on Ulduar Raid encounters after the encounters end.

Additionally, to facilitate the testing of bosses after XT-002 we have added a teleporter skip to take players to the Antechamber of Ulduar even if XT-002 has not yet been defeated. You will need to engage Flame Leviathan at least once to activate the teleporters in Ulduar.

Thanks to everyone who has joined us for testing so far!

Greetings!

Build: 47014

December 8, 2022

Testing Focus - Ulduar “Pre-Nerf”

• The Ulduar raid is now available for testing in both 10 and 25 player versons.
  • To facilitate testing we have re-enabled Character Copy from live realms, as well as added new items to the PTR vendors in Dalaran.
    • Of note, Dungeon Gearatuar in Dalaran also sells the Celestial Planetarium key to access Algalon the Observer’s room.
  • We’ve also added functionality to the teleporters within Ulduar to allow groups to skip to any area of Ulduar right away.
  • Additionally, the door to the Celestial Planetarium is open and Algalon can be accessed freely.
  • Please note that in the release version of the game, you will need to progress through the instance as normal to unlock additional teleporters, and you will need to complete the pre-requisite tasks to unlock the Celestial Planetarium as was the case in 2009.

Ulduar Known Issues

• When a player is affected by Slag Pot on the Ignis the Furnace Master encounter, their portrait and buff/debuff bars display as if they themselves were Ignis.
• Iron Dwarf Mole Machines that spawn during the Razorscale encounter play their initial spawn animation twice.
• During Phase 4 of the Mimiron encounter the Aerial Command Unit spins at extremely high velocity.
• The initial impact animation of Hodir’s Fury during the Flame Leviathan encounter does not properly clean up and despawn when the spell animation completes, and will persist indefinitely in the encounter space.
• Yogg-Saron does not display its appropriate death animation when it is defeated.
• The achievement progress for Supermassive during the Algalon encounter does not reset its progress properly after a failed attempt.
• The Ulduar Teleporter objects do not change their appearance state after being activated.

Summary of Ulduar Adjustments

There are far too many changes to list in their entirety, but here is a rundown of meaningful changes as well as each bosses’ most significant pre-nerf adjustments. We cannot stress enough that the pre-nerf changes listed here are not comprehensive nor overly detailed in all cases. This is merely an overview of major adjustments we made to bring the encounters back into their most challenging early states.

Realm First! Death’s Demise

• The Realm’s First: Death’s Demise achievement now requires all four Titan Keepers to be completed on Hard Mode as well as the Assembly of Iron completed on the highest level of hard mode within the same lockout as the Yogg-Saron kill to qualify for the achievement.
  • Developer’s Notes: This is a #change from 2009 but this has been done to help situations where guilds vying for Realm First achievements might feel forced to potentially make a choice between trying to unlock Algalon and/or complete the keepers on hard mode or pushing straight to Yogg Saron for the Realm First achievement, potentially missing out on better rewards while making the push. Making the keepers required as well as Assembly of Iron smooths this out somewhat as all of the needed bosses for both Zero Lights in the Darkness and Algalon are on the critical path to the realm first achievement, and also makes this slightly more difficult to accomplish in general by requiring all of these hard modes to be completed quickly, which feels more consistent with the modern knowledge and skill level of the players who would attempt this achievement.

Flame Leviathan

• Towers of Flame, Storm, Life, and Frost health increased
• Tower of Frost additionally slows movement speed by 20%
• Grab Pyrite may not be used on Salvaged Choppers in the encounter’s pre-nerf state
• Flame Vents won’t cancel early when Turrets on Flame Leviathan die

Razorscale

• Devouring Flame’s damage is increased and may crit.
• Devouring Flame’s damage category is undefined rather than “Magic”
• Devouring Flame periodic damage occurs every 1 second rather than ever 2 seconds
• Fireball Damage increased
• Fireball and Flame Breath defense category is undefined rather than”Magic”
• Dark Rune Sentinel has access to whirlwind on 10 player in addition to 25 player mode
• Razorscale will cast Flame Buffet during phase 2
• Berserk Timer is 10 minutes down from 15

Ignis the Furnace-Master

• Slag Pot damage increased
• Boss Damage is increased across the board
• Strength of the Creator’s damage mod reduced from 20% to 15%
  • Developer’s Note: In this state Strength of the Creator is slightly less powerful than its post-nerf state, but this is offset by significantly increased damage that the boss deals with all other abilities

XT-002 Deconstructor

• (25 Player) XR-949 Salvagebots (pre-XT trash mob) will cast Deploy Salvage Claws twice as often
• Health and damage increased in all raid sizes and modes for XT-002 and all adds
• Searing Light and Gravity bomb now reference the same version of the Heartbreak spell used in 10 and 25 player mode.
  • Developer’s Note: Originally these were split to make this less punishing on 10 player. Not so in pre-nerf mode
• Gravity Bomb damage increased
• Light Bomb damage increased
• Light Bomb Radius increased from 8y to 10y
• Heart Overload visual occurs much more often
• The amount of health and damage increase XT-002 gains when Heartbreak is active has increased dramatically
• Shock now chains to up to 3 targets
• Tympanic Tantrum duration increased from 8 to 12 seconds
• Defense Matrix range increased from 30 to 45 yards
• Defense Matrix damage reduction aura increased from 7 to 8 yards
• The ability Trash Compactor, cast by the add XD-175 Compactobot has had frequency adjustments:
  • Initial cast delay reduced between 5 and 15 seconds to a consistent 5 seconds
  • Frequency reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds
• Berserk Timer is 6 minutes down from 10

Assembly of Iron

• Damage and healing of all abilities increased across all raid sizes and modes
• Rune of Death periodic damage is increased
• Electrical Charge healing increased
• Static Disruption has been re-added to the encounter
• (25 Player) Overwhelming power debuff duration reduced to 25 seconds from 35 seconds
• (25 Player) Meltdown duration reduced to 25 seconds from 35 seconds

Kologarn

• Crunch Armor now stacks and the duration is increased to 20 seconds from 6 seconds
• Focused Eyebeam damage increased
• Focused Eyebeam may target tanks
• Focused Eyebeam will no longer whisper players to inform them that “Kologarn focuses his eyes on you!”
• Petrifying Breath will now cast when no players are near Kologarn, even if the boss is being directly attacked
• (10 Player) Rumble damage increased, and range increased from 7 to 10 yards
• Stone Grip periodic damage increased
• Stone Shout damage increased
• (25 Player) Stone Nova damage increased
• Squeezed Lifeless duration reduced to 10 seconds (up from 15) and will kill players at the end of the duration
• Falling Rubble will no longer cancel an active cast of Stone Grip.

Auriaya

• Sanctum Sentry – Strength of the Pack damage buff increased from 30% to 50%
• Sanctum Sentry – Savage Pounce range increased from 8-25 yards to 8-30 yards
• (25 Player) Savage Pounce damage increased
• Seeping Essence Stalker – Seeping Feral Essence damage increased
• Sonic Screech damage increased
• Terrifying Screech fear duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds

Hodir

• Shatter Chest will now occur at 120 seconds rather than 180 seconds.
• The Mage NPC spell Toasty Fire has an added Initial Cast Delay of 10 seconds
• The Shaman NPC spell Storm Clould has an added Initial Cast Delay of 27 seconds
  • Developer’s Note: The original delay of these spells had variability. For example Toasty Fire actually had an initial cast delay of 10 to 15 seconds. Given that Hodir is an intense DPS race we don’t want players to feel compelled to reset or wipe in order to get the ideal minimum delay of 10 seconds before the initial cast of Toasty Fire so we’ve removed the upper end of the original delay and guaranteeing the cast at 10. This is still a significant increase to the difficulty of the fight given the strict timer on the Hard-Mode chest.

Thorim

• (25 Player) Iron Ring Guard will now hit all targets in a 10 yard radius with the spell Whirling Trip instead of just the tank
• Aura of Celerity no longer buffs the MC’ing Priest’s entire raid and now only buffs the party of the MC’ing Priest
• Aura of Celerity Radius increased from 30 to 40 yards
• Chain Lightning may now chain to up to 99 targets (up from 8)
  • Developer’s Note: I’m Sorry…
• Supercharged affects damage of all schools, not just physical
• Whirling Trip may now chain to up to 5 targets in a 10 yard radius
• Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike initial cast delay reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds and the frequency has increased from every 25 seconds to every 20 seconds.
  • Unbalancing Strike cast has increased in “priority” amongst the boss’s actions
    • Developer’s Note: This makes Unbalancing Strike share cast priority with Chain Lightning. It’s not exactly clear what the implications of this change are but it’s what shows up in the original data. Let’s find out together! Weeeeee!
• Thorim’s Chain Lightning cast frequency increased to 8 seconds up from 12 seconds
  • Developer’ Note: Thorim will now cast this spell directly instead of buffering it with a target filter that removed potential melee targets if Thorim was just about to or had recently cast the spell Lightning Charge. Sorry Melee…
• Thorim’s base damage as increased across all raid sizes and difficulties
• Runic Colossus will not cancel an active cast of Runic Smash when he enters combat.

Freya

• Tidal Wave’s defense category changed from Magic to None
• Tidal Wave’s Prevention Category changed from Silence to None
• Unstable Energy periodic damage increased
• (25 Player) Brightleaf’s Essence damage buffs to Lashers and Freya increased from 50 to 60%
• (25 Player) Growth of Nature’s health mod increased from 20 to 30%
• (25 Player) Iron Roots periodic damage increased
• (25 Player) Stonebark’s Essence damage mod increased from 50 to 75%
• (25 Player) The ability Displace Roots has been re-added to Guardian Lasher trash mobs leading up to Freya

Freya (Elder Ironbranch)

• Iron Roots spell category is no longer categorized as a root effect.
  • Developer’s Note: This effectively means that certain talents and abilities that prevent or remove roots will not prevent this root effect

Mimiron

• Plasma Blast periodic damage increased
• Deafening Siren silence radius increased from 10 yards to 15 yards
• Emergency Mode (Cannon) damage and health increased
• Emergency Mode (Mimiron) damage and health increased
• Flames damage increased
• Ice Turret’s defense category changed from Magic to None
• Ice Turret’s prevention category changed from Silence to None
• Rocket Strike’s speed increased from 7y/sec to 10y/sec
• Rocket Strike duration reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds
• (25 Player) Explosion damage increased
• (25 Player) Heat Wave base damage and periodic increased
• (25 Player) Ice Nova damage increased

General Vezax

• (10 Player) Recast delay of Shadow crash changed from a range of 10-15 seconds to a flat 10 seconds
• (25 Player) Recast delay of Shadow crash changed from a range of 10-15 seconds to a flat 7 seconds
• Boss and add damage and health increased across all raid sizes and difficulties

Yogg-Saron

• (25 Player) Yogg-Saron Health Increased

• Boil Ominously range increased from 7 yards to 8 yards

• Diminish Power now stacks up to 4 times

• Focused Anger Duration proc cooldown removed

• Focused Anger can now proc from any damage, not just player damage

• Guardian of Yogg-Saron may now cast Dominate Mind

  • Initial Cast Delay of 15 seconds
  • Recast frequency is 5-10 seconds

• The cast frequency of Drain Life cast by Immortal Guardians and Marked Immortal guardians has been reduced from 20-30 seconds to 10 seconds

• Constrictor Tentacles no longer despawn on the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3

• Guardians of Yogg-Saron spawn more frequently in Phase 1

• Crusher Tentacles Spawn more frequently in Phase 2

Algalon the Observer

• Damage has been increased across the board in all raid sizes and difficulties
• Boss Melee attack damage increased and attack speed slowed down.

With Dragonflight’s recent launch behind us, we want to take some time to talk with you more about what occurred these past few days from an engineering viewpoint. We hope that this will provide a bit more insight on what it takes to make a global launch like this happen, what can go right, what hiccups can occur along the way, and how we manage them.

Internally, we call events like last Monday “content launch,” because launching an expansion is a process, not one day. Far from being a static game running the same way it did eighteen years ago—or even two years ago—World of Warcraft is in constant change and growth, and our deployment processes change as well.

Expansions now consist of several smaller launches: the code first goes live running the old content, then pre-launch events and new systems turn on, and finally, on content launch day, new areas, quests, and dungeons. Each stage changes different things so we can find and fix problems. But in any large, complex system, the unexpected can still occur.

One change with this expansion was that the content launch was triggered using a timed event —multiple changes to the game can be triggered to all happen at a particular time. Manually making these changes carries the risk of human error, or an internal or external tool outage. Using a timed event helps to mitigate these risks.

Another change in Dragonflight: greatly enhanced support for encrypting game data records. Encrypted records allow us to send out our client with the data that the game needs to show cutscenes, share voice lines, or unlock quests, but keep that data from being mined before players get to experience them in-game. We know the community loves WoW, and when you’re hungry to experience any morsel, it’s hard to not spoil yourself before the main course. Encrypted records allow us to take critical story beats and hide them from players until the right time to reveal them.

We now know that the lag and instability we saw last week was caused by the way these two systems interacted. The result was: they forced the simulation server (that moves your characters around the world and performs their spells and abilities) to recalculate which records should be hidden more than one hundred times a second, per simulation. As a great deal of CPU power was spent doing these calculations, the simulations became bogged down, and requests from other services to those simulation servers backed up. Players see this as lag and error messages like “World Server Down”.

As we discovered, records encrypted until a timed event unlocked them exposed a small logic error in the code: a misplaced line of code signaled to the server that it needed to recalculate which records to hide, even though nothing had changed.

Here’s some insight on how that investigation occurred. First, the clock struck 3:00 p.m. PST. We know from testing that the Horde boat arrives first, and the Alliance boat arrives next. Many of us are logged in to the game on our characters sitting on the docks in both locations in one computer window, watching logs or graphs or dashboards in other windows. We’re also on a conference call with colleagues from our support teams from all over Blizzard.

Before launch, we’ve created contingency plans for situations we’re worried about as a result of our testing. For example, for this launch, our designers created portals that players could use to get to the Dragon Isles in case the boats failed to work.

At 3:02 p.m. the Horde boat arrives on schedule. Hooray! Players pile on, including some Blizzard employees. Other employees wait (they want to be test cases in case we must turn on portals.) The players on the boats sail off, and while some do arrive on the Dragon Isles, many more are disconnected or get stuck.

Immediately we start searching logs and dashboards. There are some players on the Dragon Isles map, but not many. Colleagues having issues report their character names and realms as specific examples. Others start reporting spikes in CPU load and on our NFS (Network File Storage) that our servers use. Still others are watching in-game, reporting what they see.

Now that we’ve seen the Horde boats, we start watching for the Alliance boats to arrive. Most of them don’t, and most of the Horde boats do not return.

A picture emerges: the boats are stuck, and Dragon Isles servers are taking much longer to spin up than expected. Here’s where we really dig in and start to problem solve.

Boats have been a problem in the past, so we turn on portals while we continue investigating. Our NFS is clearly overloaded. There’s a large network queue on the service responsible for coordinating the simulation servers, making it think simulations aren’t starting, so it launches more and starts to overwhelm our hardware. Soon we discover that adding the portals has made the overload worse, because players can click the portals as many times as they want, so we turn the portals off.

As the problems persist, we work on tackling the increased load to get as many players in to play as possible, but the service is not acting like it did in pre-launch tests. We continue to problem-solve the issue and discount things we know aren’t the issue based on those tests.

Despite the lateness in the day, many continue to work while others take off to get rest so they can return early the following day to get a fresh start and relieve those who will work overnight.

By Tuesday morning, we have a better understanding of things. We know we’re sending more messages to clients about quests than usual, although later discoveries will reveal this isn’t causing problems. A new file storage API we’re using is hitting our file storage harder than usual. Some new code added for quest givers to beckon players seems slower than it should be. The service is taking a very long time to send clients all the data changes made in hotfixes. Reports are coming in that the players who have gotten to the Dragon Isles playing have started experiencing extreme lag.

Mid-Tuesday morning a coincidence happens: digging deep into the new beckon code we find hooks for the new encryption system. We start looking at the question from the other side —could the encryption system being slow explain these and other issues we’re seeing? As it turns out, yes it can. The encryption system being slow explains the hotfix problem, the file storage problem, and the lag players are experiencing. With the source identified, the author of the relevant part of the system was able to identify the error and make the needed correction.

Pushing a fix to code used across so many services isn’t like flipping a switch, and new binaries must be pushed out and turned on. We must slowly move players from the old simulations to new ones for the correction to be picked up. In fact, at one point we try to move players too quickly and cause another part of the service to suffer. Some of the affected binaries cannot be corrected without a service restart, which we delay until the fewest players are online to not disrupt players who were in the game. By Wednesday, the fix was completely out and service stability dramatically improved.

While it took some effort to identify the issue and get it fixed, our team was incredibly vigilant in investigating the issue and getting it corrected as quickly as possible. Good software engineering isn’t about never making mistakes; it’s about minimizing the chances of making them, finding them quickly when they happen, having the tools to get in the fixes right away…

…and having an amazing team to come together to make it all happen.

—The World of Warcraft Engineering Team

Showtime! Everything you need to know to watch the WoW Variety Show on December 10.

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Showtime! Everything you need to know to watch the WoW Variety Show on December 10.

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Hey all! Here are today’s hotfixes.

December 7, 2022

Black Market Auction House

• Fixed an issue where players at max level could not use the Black Market Auction House.

Classes

• Hunter
  • Fixed an issue where Sentinel Owl would remove Rogues from Stealth.
• Monk
  • Windwalker
    • Fixed an issue where Transfer the Power was gaining multiple stacks from a single Rising Sun Kick.
• Paladin
  • Fixed an issue where Seal of the Crusader was increasing all Holy damage taken by the target instead of just the caster’s Holy damage.
• Priest
  • Holy
    • Fixed an issue causing Answered Prayers to not be removed when extending Apotheosis.
• Rogue
  • Subtlety
    • Secret Technique can now correctly trigger Alacrity.
• Shaman
  • Enhancement
    • Fixed an issue causing Maelstrom Weapon to not stack past 8 stacks with Raging Maelstrom.

Creatures and NPCs

• Fixed the positions of several enemies in the Fetid Encampment so that they are no longer blocked by the environment.

Dungeons and Raids

• Ruby Life Pools
  • Kyrakka and Erkhart Stormvein
    • Fixed an issue where Kyrakka could attack unintended targets when she lands.
    • Fixed an issue that could prevent Flaming Embers from correctly inflicting damage.
• Shrine of the Storm
  • Tidesage Council
    • Multiple adjustments were made to Slicing Blast on Normal difficulty to require fewer interrupts from players still in the leveling process.
• Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
  • Fixed an issue that was preventing Death Knights from returning to the dungeon using Death Gate.

Items and Rewards

• The Bottomless Reliquary Satchel trinket now provides primary stats.
• Greater Obsidian Key will no longer vanish upon leaving the Obsidian Citadel.
• Fixed an issue where Waking Earth and Waking Fire were unable to be used when spawned outside the Waking Shores.
• Increased affected area of Tome of Unstable Power to 8 yards (was 5).
• Fixed an issue where the Darkmoon Deck: Dance was removing players’ shapeshift.
• Fixed an issue where Missingway Hand Cannon was incorrectly categorized as a bow.

Pet Battles

• Fixed an issue where the Snowclaw Cub could not be summoned from the Pet Journal.

Player versus Player

• Classes
  • Druid
    • Guardian
      • Den Mother (PvP Talent) now affects raid and party members.
• Items
  • Assembly Guardian’s Ring absorption reduced by 60% in PvP combat.
  • Assembly Scholar’s Loop damage reduced by 60% in PvP combat.
  • Assembly Preserver’s Band heal reduced by 60% in PvP combat.

Quests

• The Azure Span
  • Fixed an issue where the Artifact Locator would remain after completing “Can’t Have These.”
• Dragonflight Campaign
  • Fixed an issue causing “Renown of Dragon Isles” and “Open Orientation” to not be available to alts who have not completed the Thaldrazus storyline, preventing them from completing the endgame campaign.
• Jewelcrafting
  • Mundane Gems now correctly drop from Djaradin enemies during “Mundane Gems, I Think Not!”
• Obsidian Citadel
  • Fixed an issue where Osoria’s Assistance would remain in player’s inventory after completing “Hands-Off Operation.”
• Ohn’ahran Plains
  • Fixed an issue with “Second Challenge of Tyr: Might” where the second objective incorrectly directed players to speak with the Projection of Tyr and has been corrected to the Maiden of Inspiration.
• Thaldraszus
  • World Quests
    • Fixed an issue where freeing Imprisoned Travelers during “Rebel Concerns” was not correctly providing credit.
    • Fixed an issue with “Hydro Tuskarr” where switching watershoes caused the extra action button to disappear.
    • Fixed the visual for Watergliders and Waterwalkers when they are equipped during “Hydro Tuskarr.”
    • Fixed an issue where the Sneaky Youngster could be interacted with multiple times during “Hide and Seek.”
• The Waking Shores
  • The amount of Impressive Dragon Skulls required to complete Tarjin’s Tale reduced to 5 (was 25).

Reputation

• Iskaara Tuskarr
  • Map icons for the Community Feast should now display for eligible alts.
• Valdrakken Accord
  • Players who have reached renown rank 26 or higher with Valdrakken Accord will now unlock armor for all four dragonriding drakes when they enter Thaldraszus.

The race to see who can end Raszageth the Storm-Eater’s plans to freeing her fellow incarnates within the Vault of the Incarnates begins December 13. The best of the best will face a series of challenges to the finish line to claim World First—and you can earn an in-game toy when you follow the action on Twitch!

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Learn more about the changes coming to Dragonflight Season 1, a new raid—Vault of the Incarnates, an updated rotation of challenging Mythic+ dungeons, and a new PvP Season.

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End Raszageth the Storm-Eater’s plans of freeing her fellow incarnates within the Vault of the Incarnates beginning December 12 with Dragonflight Season 1!

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Whoops. That’s a typo. Fixed the post above

Hello, just popping in for a quick update.

First off, wanted to let everyone know that barring us finding any major blocking bugs internally over the 24 hours, we are still planning to begin Ulduar Raid testing on Thursday Dec 8th. To help everyone prepare for this we plan to turn character copy back on tomorrow December 7th at or around 12 p.m. PDT.

Additionally, we plan to leave the raid available for an few extra days, likely letting it run until Wednesday Dec 13th so that guilds that raid earlier in the week have a chance to participate as well if they wish to do so.

As always, this could all change if something unforeseen pops up, but we are fairly confident that we’ll be in a good state for Ulduar testing on Thursday. We’ll post a more detailed update with build notes and known issues on Thursday shortly before the raid unlocks.

Thanks all and looking forward to seeing you on the PTR!

A hotfix for this issue was deployed earlier today. If you’re not seeing it reset, you may need to log out and back in to fully reset yourself.

Hey all! Here are today’s hotfixes.

DECEMBER 6, 2022

Wrath of the Lich King Classic

• Classes
  • Hunter
    • Fixed an issue where it was possible to have multiple ranks of Volley active at the same time.

Hey all! Here are today’s hotfixes.

December 6, 2022

Classes

• Death Knight
  • Blood
    • Fixed an issue with Voracious increasing Death Strike’s minimum heal by more than intended.
• Hunter
  • Fixed an issue where enemies that were immune to the knockback from High Explosive Trap were still being affected by Binding Shackles.
• Priest
  • Shadow
    • Psyfiend health reduced to 4% of the Priest’s maximum health (down from 10%).
    • Psyfiend is no longer immune to debuffs and channel effects.
    • The channel duration of Psyflay from Psyfiend is now 12 seconds to match the creature’s duration.

Creatures and NPCs

• Fixed an issue where Enkine the Voracious could not be summoned.

Dungeons and Raids

• Halls of Infusion
  • Fixed an issue that was preventing Death Knights from returning to the dungeon using Death Gate.

Items and Rewards

• Fixed an issue where if a player dies while equipped with the Primal Ritual Shell the chosen buff resets to wind.
• Adjusted the drop rates of Rousing Ire across all forms of content. In general, gathering should be providing substantially less, while participating in instanced PvP should be more rewarding.
• Dreamscape Prism now correctly increases your Mastery.
• Food buffs received from the Valdrakken Feast will no longer be cancelled when using your Hearthstone.
• The “Fully Ruby Feasted” debuff has been fixed to allow the players two simultaneous Ruby Feast buffs, and will no longer affect any of the cosmetics received from food here.
• Fixed an issue where trading Bundle O’ Cards: Dragon Isles and Soggy Clump of Darkmoon Cards could cause the client to crash.

Professions

• The number of first-time crafts that can grant experience has been reduced to 30 (was 60).
  • Developers’ note: We made this change to better support gaining XP from crafting during leveling, while minimizing the incentive to take on several throw-away professions just to level yourself faster.
• Fishing
  • Fixed an issue where Tuskarr Fishing Holes were not available to players with Iskaara Tuskarr Renown rank 4 on the account and Dragon Isles Fishing.

Quests

• The Azure Span
  • Made some backend changes to the Community Feast to reduce lag.
    • Developers’ note: Please let us know if you see unusually high lag, particularly if it happens only in the Iskaara area, or if it only happens while the Community Feast event is occurring.
• Ohn’ahran Plains
  • The quest boss for “The Field of Ferocity: Master of the Hunt!” should now behave properly when both left unengaged in combat and when being defeated.
• Thaldraszus
  • Fixed an issue where players and NPCs were floating during the “Back to the Future” cinematic.
  • Fixed an issue in “Cracks in Time” where the extra action button was not displaying while dragonriding.
• The Waking Shores
  • Fixed an issue where Disgruntled Riverbeast Matriarch was not displaying the proper tooltip during “Wildlife Rescue.”

When the Vault of the Incarnates raid opens next week, enemies inside will occasionally drop Bind-on-Equip loot, as in previous raids. For early Season 1 play, we’re putting a restriction on BoEs that drop in Mythic difficulty.

• For the first few weeks of Dragonflight Season 1, items that would have been Bind-on-Equip in lower difficulties will drop as Bind-on-Pickup items in Mythic difficulty.

One of our goals with rewards has always been to primarily make the best loot in the game come through gameplay, rather than spending gold. Bind-on-Equip items from raids have long been exceptions to that, but they provide something unique to raiders: when raid groups don’t need the BoEs for progression anymore, they can be sold to fund consumables and repairs. In Dragonflight Season 1, Mythic difficulty is opening at the same time as other difficulties, a full week before players will have even opened the Vault for the first time, and Mythic BoEs represent more of a power increase than we wish to see available for gold.

Once a few weeks have passed, we’ll revise the items to drop as BoEs in Mythic difficulty. Please note that the second adjustment will not change already-acquired soulbound gear back into Bind-on-Equip. After that time, only new drops will be BoEs.

We’ll see you in Vault of the Incarnates next week!

u/slayez06 I've sent you a DM here on reddit, looking for a lot more details on this, along with an alternate way to contact us.

Thanks.

Hey all! Here are today’s hotfixes.

December 5, 2022

Achievements

• Fixed an issue where Iskaaran Harpoon was not granting credit towards Cutting Tusk Equipment.
• Obsidian Champion should now register step completions correctly. Unfortunately, previous credit for the quest “Forging the Answer” may need to be repeated.

Classes

• Tank Specializations
  • Tank-specialized characters now generate 650% additional threat (was 550%).
    • Developers’ note: We’ve heard feedback that on-pull burst in dungeon content is causing damage dealers to pull threat more often than is desirable. This change represents roughly a 15% increase to tank threat generation, which should help alleviate these cases, while still requiring tanks to actively engage with packs to hold threat.
• Demon Hunter
  • [With weekly restarts] The Hunt damage reduced by 10%.
  • [With weekly restarts] Fodder to the Flame’s trigger rate no longer scales with Haste.
• Druid
  • Restoration
    • [With weekly restarts] Regrowth healing decreased by 6%.
• Hunter
  • [With weekly restarts] Steel Trap damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • [With weekly restarts] Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
  • [With weekly restarts] Barrage damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Marksmanship
    • [With weekly restarts] All damage increased by 10%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Heavy Ammo now causes Trick Shot ricochets to deal an additional 25% damage (was 10%).
  • Survival
    • [With weekly restarts] All damage increased by 5%.
• Mage
  • Fire
    • [With weekly restarts] Flamestrike damage increased by 8%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Pyroblast damage increased by 5%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Fireball damage increased by 10%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Scorch damage increased by 10%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Ignite damage increased by 5%.
• Monk
  • Brewmaster
    • [With weekly restarts] Brewmaster’s Balance now grants 45% increased Stamina (was 30%).
  • Mistweaver
    • [With weekly restarts] Awakened Faeline Spinning Crane Kick now heals 3 nearby allies for 60% of the damage done (was 50%).
    • [With weekly restarts] Vivify healing to primary target increased by 20%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Peaceful Mending now increases healing received by Enveloping Mist and Renewing Mist by 30% (was 20%).
    • [With weekly restarts] Yu’lon’s Whisper now heals 5 targets (was 6) and healing increased by 15%.
• Paladin
  • Protection
    • [With weekly restarts] Aegis of Light now grants 50% increased Stamina (was 45%) and 30% increased Armor (was 15%).
• Priest
  • Mind Spike now correctly has a visual when damaging enemies.
  • Shadow
    • Fixed an issue causing Mental Decay to not extend the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch when damage was absorbed.
• Rogue
  • Assassination
    • [With weekly restarts] Exsanguinate cooldown increased to 3 minutes (was 45 seconds) and bleed effect magnitude reduced to 80% (was 100%).
      • Developer’s note: Recent data from Live and Beta indicates that Exsanguinate is drastically overperforming its historic and intended power level. We recognize that this is a heavy nerf for an individual talent, but it is important that Exsanguinate’s power be similar to alternative available talent choices. We see this as a temporary measure as we head towards the opening of Dragonflight’s first season, and we will be reconsidering Exsanguinate’s position and role as an available talent for Assassination and may move, replace, or redesign it in a future patch.
• Shaman
  • Restoration
    • [With weekly restarts] All healing spells healing increased by 5%.
    • [With weekly restarts] Acid Rain damage increased by 50%.
• Warlock
  • [With weekly restarts] Soul Leech now converts 3% of damage dealt to an absorb shield (was 6%).
• Warrior
  • Arms
    • [With weekly restarts] Fueled by Violence now heals for 85% of the damage done by Deep Wounds (was 65%).
  • Protection
    • [With weekly restarts] Fueled by Violence now causes Deep Wounds to heal you for 85% (was 65%) of the damage it deals.
    • [With weekly restarts] Brutal Vitality now adds 15% of the damage dealt to your active Ignore Pain (was 30%).

Dungeons and Raids

• Brackenhide Hollow
  • Decatriarch Wratheye
    • Fixed an issue where she might not perform her abilities.
• The Nokhud Offensive
  • Fixed an issue where Teera and Maruuk encounter can sometimes reset if pulled too quickly after their roleplay has ended.
  • Fixed an issue where Ukhel Deathspeakers were using the silver dragon border instead of the gold dragon border.
• Ruby Life Pools
  • Kokia Blazehoof
    • Fixed an issue where Molten Boulder could sometimes fail to indicate the correct impact location.

Items and Rewards

• Fixed an issue where learning a toy while they were stacked would consume the entire stack.

Player versus Player

• Classes

  • Death Knight
    • [With weekly restarts] Anti-Magic Shell (Talent) absorption amount reduced by 25% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Improved Death Strike increase to Death Strike’s healing has been reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Will of the Necropolis (Talent) damage reduction reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Anti-Magic Barrier (Talent) increase to Anti-Magic Shell duration and amount absorbed has been reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Abomination Limb (Talent) will no longer pull individual enemy players more than once over its duration (was every 4 seconds).
    • Frost
      • [With weekly restarts] Death Strike’s healing increased based on recent damage is reduced by 50% if the damage was dealt by players or their pets.
    • Unholy
      • [With weekly restarts] Death Strike’s healing increased based on recent damage is reduced by 50% if the damage was dealt by players or their pets.
        • Developers’ note: Death Knight survivability has been substantially higher than we’re comfortable with, so we’re targeting several aspects of their defensive kit. We feel that with these adjustments, Death Knights will maintain durability with options to counterplay defensively. Additionally, the multiple grips from Abomination Limb created scenarios of unfun gameplay with minimal counterplay in PvP. We’re changing this talent to be able to pull in a unique player in once per talent usage. We believe this change will allow the talent to be an attractive talent to pick while maintaining counterplay options for opponents.
  • Druid
    • Restoration
      • [With weekly restarts] Budding Leaves is now 70% effective in PvP combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Fixed an issue that caused Focused Growth’s buff to only apply to one Lifebloom at a time while using the Undergrowth talent.
        • Developers’ note: Lifebloom has been a higher percentage of Druid healing’s breakdown in PvP than we’d like, so we’re reducing Budding Leaves to bring it more in line.
  • Evoker
    • [With weekly restarts] Scarlet Adaptation’s cap is reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Fire Breath’s initial damage is reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
    • [With weekly restarts] Disintegrate and Pyre deal 15% increased damage in PvP combat.
      • Developers’ note: The goal of this tuning change is to reduce the very high burst from fully charged Fire Breath, which we felt was unfair as it had the potential to kill enemy players without any time to react. Living Flame also had the potential to deal high burst with all its modifiers combined together, so we’re reducing Scarlet Adaptation’s cap in PvP. To compensate for the lost power, we’re increasing the damage of Disintegrate and Pyre so that Evoker can contribute more meaningful consistent damage. Note that this will affect both Devastation and Preservation specializations.
    • Preservation
      • [With weekly restarts] Mana regeneration is reduced by an additional 10% in PvP combat.
        • Developers’ notes: All healers have reduced mana regeneration in PvP, so that fights end after a reasonable period of time. Preservation receiving this reduction brings them closer in line with the other healers so that mana is relevant in PvP.
  • Mage
    • Arcane
      • [With weekly restarts] Nether Precision now 75% effective in PvP combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Prodigious Savant now 80% effective in PvP combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Arcane Bombardment now 65% effective in PvP combat.
        • Developers’ note: We’re looking to address Arcane’s instant burst damage through adjustments targeting Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage modifiers. Arcane Bombardment in particular has been too powerful of an execute effect in PvP for its current availability.
      • Frost
        • [With weekly restarts] Piercing Cold is now 50% effective in PvP combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] Ice Lance damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.
        • [With weekly restarts] (PvP Talent) Snowdrift no longer has a cast time (was 1.5 seconds).
        • [With weekly restarts] (PvP Talent) Snowdrift’s cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
          • Developers’ note: Glacial Spike critical strikes are hitting harder than we would like, despite the long cast time attached to this spell. We’re reducing Piercing Cold’s critical strike damage modifier in PvP to help address this without impacting the base damage of the spell. We’re also increasing the damage of Ice lance as the Splitting Ice talent is less valuable in PvP, given the unpredictable and constant movement of players. Additionally, Snowdrift has been requiring more ramp up than intended, so we’re removing its cast time and lowering its cooldown.
  • Monk
    • Mistweaver
      • [With weekly restarts] Ancient Teachings of the Monastery now heals for 375% of damage done in PvP combat (was 240%).
        • Developers’ note: We would like to see more aggressive playstyles from Mistweaver Monk to be possible in PvP, so we’re targeting Ancient Teaching of the Monastery to bolster the playstyle.
  • Rogue
    • [With weekly restarts] Echoing Reprimand damage reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
      • Developers’ note: We’ve seen that the ability could have extremely high burst, more than we’re comfortable with, so we are partially reverting the change made in last week’s hotfixes, where Echoing Reprimand’s damage was no longer reduced in PvP.
  • Shaman
    • Elemental
      • [With weekly restarts] Magma Chamber effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
        • Developers’ note: Earth Shock and Elemental Blast from Elemental Shamans deal more damage than intended with high stacks of Magma Chamber, so we are lowering its effect in PvP.
    • Enhancement
      • [With weekly restarts] Improved Maelstrom Weapon increases the damage and healing of spells by 8%/15% per stack of Maelstrom Weapon in PvP combat (was 10%/20%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Raging Maelstrom increases the effectiveness of Maelstrom Weapon stacks by 3% in PvP combat (was 5%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Stormstrike and Windstrike damage increased by 30% in PvP combat.
        • Developers’ note: Damage and healing from fully stacked Maelstrom Weapon are higher than intended in PvP, so we’re reducing the value of the associated talents. Separately, we’d like for Enhancement’s sustained damage to be more well-rounded in PvP, so we’re increasing Stormstrike’s damage.
  • Warlock
    • [With weekly restarts] Curse of Tongues reduces cast time by 10% in PvP combat (was 15%).
    • [With weekly restarts] Curse of Tongues applied through Amplify Curse reduces cast time by 20% in PvP combat (was 35%).
      • Developers’ note: We’re reducing the overall power of Curse of Tongues in PvP. We’d like for the spell to be valuable to cast, but not cause casters to have a frustrating time trying to cast spells.
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • [With weekly restarts] Mortal Strike’s damage is no longer reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
      • [With weekly restarts] Sharpened Blades now increases critical strike damage by 5% in PvP combat (was 10%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Martial Prowess now increases Mortal Strike’s damage by 15% per stack in PvP combat (was 30%).
      • [With weekly restarts] Execute damage increased by 20% in PvP combat (Arms only).
      • [With weekly restarts] Rend damage reduced by 15% in PvP combat (Arms only).
        • Developers’ note: We’re looking to increase Mortal Strike’s consistent damage while keeping its burst potential in line through targeted adjustments to its modifiers. We’re also reducing Rend’s damage in PvP as Skullsplitter has been a culprit for one-shots.

• War Mode

  • Bloody Tokens from honorable kills are no longer awarded while in a raid.
    • Developers’ Note: We are happy to see awarding Bloody Tokens from player kills in the open world has had positive reception. However, we’ve seen some behavior going against the spirit of the game, particularly forming full raid groups to farm the currency rather than through organic PvP encounters in the open world. Bloody Tokens are still awarded for honorable kills in the open world when a player is in a party, but not in a raid group.

Professions

• Skill ranges indicated by Mining and Herbalism gathering journals now accurately reflect the leveling experience.
• Alchemy
  • Alchemical Experimentation has been re-enabled.
• Blacksmithing
  • Grekka Anvilsmash (Master Blacksmith) now correctly offers Blacksmithing Knowledge instead of Mining Knowledge.
• Engineering
  • Tinker’s Workbench and Portable Tinker’s Workbench are now also considered Anvils.
• Fishing
  • Fixed an issue where full Fishing Nets in River Mouth Fishing Hole occasionally disappearing.

Quests

• Adventure Mode
  • Fixed an issue where the campaign quest indicators were not appearing properly for quests in Ohn’ahran Plains and Thaldraszus.
• The Azure Span
  • Fixed an issue where quest rewards could be unavailable for some players turning in “For Imbu!”
• Ohn’ahran Plains
  • Fixed an issue where the first four quests of Thunderspine dailies were erroneously removing all items from player’s inventory and bank upon completion.
• Thaldraszus
  • Abandoning the Horde or Alliance versions of the quest “Deathwingurlugull!” while in the plane will now result in the player being teleported back to the quest givers.

Reputation

• Cobalt Assembly
  • Leech stacks now capped at 5.

User Interface and Accessibility

• The icon for Siege on Dragonbane Keep now disappears when it is no longer available due to already being completed.

Upon further review and consideration, we’ve decided to drop this change at this time.

All along, our goal has been to avoid making World Quests feel mandatory, while still offering them as a worthwhile option for players who are looking for things to do on a given day.

Following your feedback here and our own internal discussions, we’re going to try to find other ways to accomplish that without impacting crafting too much or generating a great deal of concern for those who don’t already have a daily routine or want a daily routine.

Thank you.

With scheduled weekly maintenance tomorrow, we’re making a change that we’ve seen a lot of feedback from players about.

• Many World Quests associated with the Valdrakken Accord, Iskaara Tuskarr, and Dragonscale Expedition factions will now reset daily (was semi-weekly).

The Maruuk Centaur, who have regular hunts and a nomadic camp full of periodic quests, will continue to offer their World Quests on a semi-weekly cadence.