World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Still concerned about Burning Wounds (BW) and how you have to apply it.

This is a concern we’ve heard echoed from many sources and have been thinking about as well. When it is one legendary choice among many and contained to a limited window of time as with the Shadowlands version, the divergent rotational gameplay required by it can be novel and appropriate. But we are less comfortable carrying that gameplay forward as a more permanent talent choice, and will be testing a slightly modified talent version of Burning Wound that intends to streamline gameplay and solidify an identity as an effect that is at its best in low target count scenarios.

So, the following adjustments are currently planned (and as always, are subject to change):

• Burning Wound DoT applied by Throw Glaive (was Demon’s Bite)
• Burning Wound DoT damage reduced by 25%
• Immolation Aura bonus damage on Wounded targets reduced to 45% (was 65%)
• May be applied to a maximum of 3 targets

This updated talent version will be available for testing in a future update, and we’re hoping you’ll try it out and let us know what you think. Cheers.

Greetings, Feral Druids! We’re excited to share that there is a new version of the Feral tree in the next Beta update. These are some meaty changes you can really sink your claws into, with new talents, lots of revisions, and changes to the tree layout. Here’s some of what we’re intending with these changes.

Identity

At its core, Feral’s gameplay is about applying and maintaining powerful bleeds on enemies, then spending additional combo points on Ferocious Bites for more damage. In 9.2.5, Ferocious Bite is extremely powerful (and extends Rips with Sabertooth), which can lead to it taking over your rotation. Our goal for this tree is to get back to bleeds, especially Rip, being the center of your damage and gameplay again, with Ferocious Bite adding additional damage when you have the combo points for it. We’ve changed or removed any effects that dynamically extend bleed duration, so maintaining bleeds will always be a part of your rotation.

We’ve added several options to make Bleeds more interesting or useful in different situations. Primal Wrath has been moved near the top of the tree to give Feral an AOE combo point spender early. There are also new talents to do things like briefly increase all Rip damage, consume part of Rip’s duration to deal some of its damage instantly, or make Ferocious Bite hit nearby bleeding targets. These new tools should also enable you to get full value out of every combo point in AOE combat.

We’ve also returned a lot of Berserk’s current power to the first point you spend in it, while keeping some additional talents to make it stronger (and adding some new ones).

Complexity

We pay a lot of attention to gameplay complexity. Feral has some talents that increase the complexity of its rotation in exchange for power. The challenge with these types of abilities, especially in Dragonflight’s talent trees, is that if they’re strong, they can feel required. In the case of Bloodtalons and Brutal Slash, we added alternatives for players who want most of the power without the complexity. In the case of Savage Roar, we removed it. We prefer Feral’s combo point spenders to focus on maintaining bleeds and weaving in Ferocious Bites when possible.

Choice

Many of the new talents are about giving Feral players tools to customize their gameplay in the direction they prefer. There are, of course, talents that strengthen AOE or single target damage (though you should always feel capable in both scenarios). But other options allow you to customize how much energy regeneration you have, how powerful your combo point builders are, how often you need to refresh your bleeds, or how powerful your Berserk & Tiger’s Fury cooldowns are.

We’re excited to hear your feedback on these changes and for you to have an opportunity to play them. Here’s what’s coming:



Protective Growth. New talent, row 2. Your Regrowth protects you, reducing all damage you take by 3% while it is on you.

Improved Bleeds. Changed to 1 rank (from 2).

Pouncing Strikes. New talent, row 3. Grants extra damage & combo points to Shred & Rake when striking from stealth.

Tireless Energy. Renamed from Max Energy, changed to 2 ranks (from 3) and grants 2% haste per rank.

Sabertooth. Now increases Ferocious Bite damage by 20% and increases damage dealt by Rip by 4% for each combo point spent for 4 seconds.

Piercing Claws (2 ranks). New talent, row 4. Critical Strike chance increased by 2%.

Double-Clawed Rake. New talent, row 4. Rake also applies Rake to 1 additional nearby target.

Sudden Ambush. Changed to 2 ranks (from 3) and grants 5% chance to strike as if from stealth per rank (up from 1%).

Dreadful Bleeding. New talent, row 5. Rip damage increased by 15%.

Berserk. Replaces Berserk: Relentlessness. Berserk now grants combo point refund on finishing moves and causes Rake & Shred to deal damage as if stealthed.

Tear Open Wounds. New talent, row 5. Primal Wrath consumes up to 4 sec of Rip damage on targets it hits and deals 75% of it instantly.

Taste for Blood. Changed to 2 ranks (from 3).

Ferocious Frenzy. New talent, row 6. Ferocious Bite also hits nearby enemies within 8 yds afflicted by Rip for 25% damage. Deals reduced damage over 8 targets.

Infected Wounds. Now also increases Rake damage by 20%.

Row 7 choice node:

• Raging Fury. New talent. Finishing moves extend the duration of Tiger’s Fury by 0.2 sec per combo point spent.
• Frantic Momentum. New talent. Finishing moves have a 3% chance per combo point spent to grant 10% Haste for 6 seconds.

Berserk: Heart of the Lion. New talent, row 7. Each combo point spent reduces the cooldown of Berserk by 0.5 seconds.

Berserk: Frenzy. No longer causes combo point generating abilities to reduce the cooldown of Berserk.

Wild Slashes. New talent, row 7, choice node with Brutal Slash. Swipe and Thrash deal 20% more damage.

Bite Force. New talent, row 9, choice node with Bloodtalons. Ferocious Bite and Rip deal +10% damage.

Row 9 choice node:

• Veinripper. New talent. Rip & Rake & Thrash last +25% longer
• Rip & Tear. New talent. Applying Rip to a target also applies a Tear that deals X Bleed damage per combo point spent over 6 sec.

Feral Frenzy and Apex Predator are now standalone talents.

Ashamane’s Guidance. Was Modal Cooldown Bonus. Gives auto attacks a chance to trigger Incarnation for 6 sec, or reduces Convoke the Spirits’ duration by 25% and gives it an increased chance to trigger a powerful ability.

Removed Talents

• Improved Tiger’s Fury. Tiger’s Fury now always grants 50 Energy.
• Improved Shred.
• Improved Prowl.
• Berserk: Jungle Stalker.
• Savage Roar.
• Draught of Deep Focus.

Thank you for your patience and your feedback!

And hello, Restoration Druids! A new Restoration tree will be sprouting into the next Beta build with spell changes, layout adjustments, multi-point node reduction, and new abilities! Players can also expect many previously Not Yet Implemented (NYI) talents to be ready for testing. We would like to give our thoughts on some of these upcoming adjustments.

Build Diversity and Support

A good amount of feedback for the Restoration Druid tree has been it felt very similar to the current Shadowlands build and there weren’t many variations to playstyle throughout the tree. To open build diversity we’ve focused on adding new tools to existing builds to change their gameplay and creating spells to support new playstyles. Lifebloom, for example, is seeing more talents throughout this tree now.

Mastery Mattering

Restoration Druid’s Mastery is a very compelling stat, but generally does not have a lot of areas of the game where it gets to shine. We are looking at old bonuses and new effects to incorporate Mastery further into the spec and give players more reason to think about their Heal over Time placement as they parse their group’s damage intake.

Layout Changes

The layout of the Restoration Druid tree has changed significantly from its previous iteration. The new layout is intended to provide more options and improved pathing. Here’s what players can expect to see:



New Talent Additions

Nature’s Splendor. New Talent, row 3. The healing bonus to Regrowth from Nature’s Swiftness is increased by 50%.

Flash of Clarity. New Talent, row 3. Clearcast Regrowths heal for an additional 30%.

Waking Dream. New Talent, row 4. Ysera’s Gift now heals every 4 seconds and heals for an additional 5% for each of your active Rejuvenations.

Nurturing Dormancy. New Talent, row 6. When your Rejuvenation heals a full health target, its duration is increased by 3 seconds, up to a maximum total increase of 9 seconds per cast.

Dreamstate. New Talent, row 6. While channeling Tranquility, your other Druid spell cooldowns are reduced by up to 10 seconds.

Verdancy. New Talent, row 7. When Lifebloom blooms, up to 3 targets within your Efflorescence are healed for X.

Budding Leaves. New Talent, row 9. Lifebloom’s Healing is increased by 6% each time it heals, up to 90%. Also increases Lifebloom’s final bloom amount by 15%.

Embrace of the Dream. New Talent, row 9. Wild Growth has a 100% chance to momentarily shift your mind into the Emerald Dream, instantly healing all allies affected by your Rejuvenation for X.

Regenerative Heartwood. New Talent, row 9. Allies protected by your Ironbark also receive 75% of the healing from each of your active Rejuvenations.

The complete list of changes will be released with the next beta build. Thanks so much for your continued feedback!

Hello Hunters,

Some quick notes on changes coming in a future build:

Class Tree:

• Hunter’s Agility is being changed from a 2-rank node down to 1 rank, and will reduce area of effect damage taken by 6%.
• Improved Traps and Rejuvenating Winds will have their positions switched.
• Note on Arctic Bola: The snare value is 20%, and should not be changing per rank, the tooltip showing 50/100% snare per rank is incorrect. This is not intended to be a big snare or something you are relying on to kite enemies around.

Marksmanship:

• Windrunner’s Guidance is having its design changed to: Each Wind Arrow has a 3% chance to grant you 10 sec of Trueshot.
  
  • This includes Wind Arrows from either Aimed Shot, or from Windrunner’s Barrage below Wailing Arrow.

Survival:

• Ferocity lowered from 2 ranks down to 1.
• Intense Focus lowered from 2 ranks down to 1.

Thanks for your continued feedback and testing.

P.S. I hope you all have a nice weekend every week, even if I don’t post that here.

Enhancement Shaman,

Some changes are coming to a build you will receive next week, and we wanted to discuss that here.

• Stormbringer is now just something you know starting at level 10 as an Enhancement Shaman alongside your Mastery.
• New 1-point talent in Stormbringer’s Spot: Storm’s Wrath. Increases the mastery bonus chance for Stormbringer and Windfury to activate by 100%. This is a multiplier, not additive.
  
  • Note, this only increases the bonus proc chance from Mastery, which is 0.64% without any gear, and does not affect the elemental damage bonus from Mastery.
• Improved Maelstrom Weapon is now a 2 rank node, up from 1, for the same total benefit.
• Focused Maelstrom has been removed.
• Raging Maelstrom now increases the damage bonus to Maelstrom Weapon by an additional 5% in addition to increasing maximum stacks by 5.
• A fair number of talents in rows 4-8 on the right side of the tree have shifted around in position.
• Lashing Flames has added as a talent on the right side of the tree.
• Alpha Wolf now procs from either Crash Lightning or Chain Lightning, rather than just Chain Lightning.
• Legacy of the Frost Witch has had its design adjusted a bit and is still 2 ranks: Every 10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon consumed resets the cooldown of Stormstrike and increases the damage of your physical abilities by 5%/20% for 5 sec.
• Feral Spirits, and the Elemental Spirits talent have been adjusted:
  
  • Each Feral Spirit type now grants you +15% damage to the related element. Normal Feral Spirits count as Physical.
  • The extra frost damage from the frosty feral spirits has been removed, but frosty feral spirits now increase your frost damage by 15%.
  • The extra Lava Lash damage from fire feral spirits has been removed.

Thank you for the continued feedback and testing.

Hello again!

We’ve reviewed the engineering items, gathered feedback, and taken a closer look at how certain items and enchantments interacted during the original Wrath of the Lich King. Additionally, the Nitro Boosts enchant can introduce a big advantage for the players that have them as you mentioned, while at the same time, it has the capacity to randomly backfire, which can introduce an unfair loss of rating. For original Wrath, the dev team tried different iterations and still decided to just remove it. So thanks to your feedback, and in the spirit of the competitive nature of ranked Arenas, we will remove them from Arenas starting with the first season of Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

We’ve decided that the following Engineering enchants and items won’t be available for use in Arenas in the first or any season of Wrath of the Lich King Classic:

• Gnomish Lightning Generator
• Nitro Boosts
• Gnomish Net-o-Match Projector (BC item)
• Hyper-Vision Goggles (BC item)

Thanks again for all of your feedback. We look forward to seeing you in the Deadly Arenas!

Hi Everyone,

Wanted to chime back in here now that we’ve had a few days to digest feedback around this and think on it some more. While we do still feel that adjusting the ilvl curve in the last half of the expansion would be a net positive to the experience overall we cannot argue with the idea that, taken at face value, a nerf is a nerf and that still stings. As a result we’ve studied the commentary from players carefully and come up with an alternative to the original suggestion based on that feedback.

Instead of “nerfing” item levels in ToC, we’d like to see how everyone feels about buffing item levels in Ulduar normal slightly (6 item levels) and Ulduar Hard Modes significantly (12 item levels). Past that, we’d make no other changes.

This would put Ulduar 25 normal gear at 232, placing it 6 ilvls above Kel’thuzad, Sartharion, and Malygos 25 gear and making even normal feel much more rewarding in comparison to Tier 7 raid end-bosses. This would also put hard mode gear at 251, which is definitely a very significant step up in power. This means that Ulduar 25 Hard Mode gear will be slightly higher in ilvl than Trial of the Crusader 25 normal gear (ilvl 245). This might be an alarming jump at first, but there are a few factors that led to us believing that this would be a net positive.

We are doing Pre-Nerf Ulduar

During Early interviews, we suggested we likely would not be doing a “pre-nerf” system to most raids in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, as the changes were not very extensive for most raid dungeons. This remains true, however, after we started actually digging into the data around raid changes that occurred during original Wrath, we realized that Ulduar actually had received fairly massive nerfs both while it was current content and immediately afterwards. As a result we will be implementing pre-nerf modes to Ulduar, including the hard mode bosses. These changes in some cases may make bosses and hard modes significantly more difficult than their final state, and we feel justifies the power gain in hard mode rewards. Just like in 2009, we are somewhat concerned that if we implement pre-nerf Ulduar and ship rewards as-is, it may not feel sufficiently rewarding.

Availability and Volume of Ulduar Hard Mode Gear

In contrast to heroic raids later in the expansion with fully fleshed-out, higher item level loot tables, the loot tables for hard mode boss kills are the same as normal but each boss (other than Algalon) grants one additional bonus piece of gear at the higher item level. Across the entire raid this means that there are a maximum total of around a dozen pieces of additional gear available at this higher item level, per clear. While we would be making these items significantly more powerful, they will remain difficult to obtain and this is not a huge amount of extra items at this level of power, at least not compared to a full tier’s worth of heroic-difficulty items.

As for how this impacts PvP, we still need to evaluate Season 6 gear for similar adjustments there so that Arena players didn’t feel they had to raid Hard Modes to compete. We don’t believe we’d totally re-itemize Season 6 gear, but a few upward adjustments would likely occur to offset this.

All told, our goal really is to make Wrath, and particularly Ulduar the best possible overall experience it can be. We love Ulduar in particular and we think many of you do as well, and want to see it shine. Rewards are one of the knobs we can turn that can really impact the experience, without having to make any kind of other mechanical changes. After some thought we think these changes are a good way to make this phase of the game feel better and maintain relevance for a bit of time after Trial of the Crusader releases, without making later phases feel worse.

As previously mentioned, this is still totally just an idea, and we’d love to continue to get your feedback on it.

Thank you!

Dungeons and Raids

• Fated Raids
  
  • Sepulcher of the First Ones
    
    • Lihuvim, Principal Architect
      
      • Resolved an issue where Creation Spark (Fated Power) could negatively affect the duration of Unstable Mote.
        
      • Resolved an issue where Fated Powers could occur twice at the start of the encounter.
        
      • Resolved an issue where damage taken from the Fated Powers Creation Spark, Reconfiguration Emitter, Chaotic Essence, and Protoform Barrier could be incidentally increased by Protoform Radiance.
        
      • Resolved an issue that could cause Fated Powers to spawn inside Unstable Motes.
        
    • The Jailer
      
      • Resolved an issue which could cause Fated Powers to spawn inside Defile.
        
• Mythic+
  
  • Grimrail Depot
    
    • Railmaster Rocketspark
      
      • Explosives will no longer spawn on top of crates.
        

Wrath of the Lich King Classic

• Classes
  
  • Weapon trail visual effects have been restored to abilities that have them.
    
• Dungeons and Raids
  
  • Blackrock Spire can again be entered by 10-player raids.
    
  • Resolved an issue where selecting certain roles for your class in the Group Finder would not actually display them in your listing.
    
  • Fixed an issue where Group Finder listings would be removed for certain players when moving between zones.
    
  • Fixed an issue where the Talent Specialization’s role could be set to tank after changing zones.
    
    • Developers’ note: The intention here is that this role selection should always default to DPS, and can be set by players based on how they want to describe their talent builds.
      
• Items and Rewards
  
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the auction of some items carried over from Burning Crusade Classic.
    
• Player versus Player
  
  • Updated the current Battleground Bonus Weekend to Warsong Gulch (was Strand of the Ancients).
    
  • Random Battleground Queue no longer shows up for players below level 80.
    
  • Fixed a crash when inspecting another player and opening the PvP tab.
    
• Quests
  
  • For the quest "Runeforging: Preparation for Battle," Instructor Razuvious will now (begrudgingly) provide a spare Runed Soulblade for Death Knights who have managed to misplace theirs.
    

Get ready for a fresh-looking Heads-Up Display (HUD), and User Interface (UI) revamp designed to be adjustable, effective, attractive, and easily accessible.

With the Dragonflight update, we’re making sweeping changes to World of Warcraft’s HUD and UI from the ground up. Our aim is to provide a clutter-free layout and allow players to customize their HUD to better fit their individual needs.

A Whole New Look

Technology has advanced since we first developed the UI in 2004. We now have more tools at our fingertips to create and improve quality-of-life features. We wanted to modernize the appearance of the player’s layout and view while maintaining the original design’s charm and personality. And there is no better time to deliver these changes than with the release of Dragonflight.


Right away, players will immediately notice the more apparent changes. For instance, the minimap and health bar are more prominent, and we’ve removed some clutter to provide greater viewable space. Also, while keeping to the iconic design, we’ve cleaned up the appearance of the Action Bar. We also added a fresh set of Gryphons and created Wyverns for our Horde-loving heroes. There’s also a new look for the loot and inventory display, and players can use Combined Backpack functionality to help them find and organize their inventory items more quickly.


Make It Your Own

Welcome to Edit mode. With Edit mode, you will now have the ability to tweak, personalize, and move (almost) anything anywhere to your heart’s desire. Not only are various elements of the HUD movable, but each individual component has a variety of options to help you get everything just right.



Once you set everything set how you like it, you’ll be able to name, save, edit, copy, and share it with the community. And, for those that change specs often, the feature is designed to remember which specialization you’re in. As you switch between specs, the feature will remember the HUD layout you have for that spec and change accordingly.


Will this new feature replace the ability to use third-party add-ons entirely? Not at all. We recognize that add-ons provide many opportunities for players to customize their experience, but not all players utilize them. However, with the help of our user research team, we are working to meet our community’s needs. We include elements that some add-ons provide to the base UI. Those who wish to can continue using the add-ons they like.


Improved Accessibility to Make Things Easier

Improving accessibility features for our players is at the forefront of much of the design of the new UI and providing ways for players to have a better experience is vital. Here are some of the changes that we’ve been working on to help improve accessibility for players:

• New Option: Press and Hold Casting – When enabled, the player can press and hold a keyboard hotkey to continually cast a spell on an Action Bar without repeatedly pressing the button.
  
• New Feature: Interact Key – Pressing the Interact Key will enable you to interact with NPCs and objects with a key press instead of a mouse click. Interactive NPCs and objects will gain an icon above their heads as you move close enough to interact.
  
• New Targeting System: Action Combat – This feature works alongside the standard targeting features and automatically targets enemies as you approach them. This will allow you to start casting abilities immediately and dynamically switch between targets based on where you’re looking.

Looking Ahead

Refining the UI is an ongoing project; we want to continue to make changes and improvements. In addition to polishing the current set of available features, we intend to tackle many other UI elements and include more features further down the line, like:

• Additional Edit Mode options
  
• Group Manager
  
• Raid Frames
  
• Quest Tracker
  
• And more updates to the art

We’ll have more information and details on these and other features as we move toward the launch of Dragonflight. We look forward to getting your feedback as you experience all these changes and more.

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World of Warcraft®: Dragonflight™ will be available on or before December 31, 2022. Visit the Dragonflight site to pre-order. Check WorldofWarcraft.com/news for updates, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

See you in the Dragon Isles!