World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

The new World of Warcraft novel, Warcraft®: Sylvanas is now available wherever books are sold. Authored by New York Times best-selling and award-winning writer, Christie Golden, this new novel chronicles the epic, definitive story of the legendary Sylvanas Windrunner.

Go on an auditory journey with voice actress Patty Mattson, the voice of Sylvanas Windrunner in World of Warcraft^®, who will narrate the audiobook, which will be published by Penguin Random House Audio.


About the Book
Ranger-General. Banshee Queen. Warchief. Sylvanas Windrunner has borne many titles. To some, she is a hero . . . to others, a villain. But whether in pursuit of justice, vengeance, or something more, Sylvanas has always sought to control her own destiny.

The power to achieve her goals has never been closer, as Sylvanas works alongside the Jailer to liberate all Azeroth from the prison of fate. Her final task? Secure the fealty of their prisoner—King Anduin Wrynn.

To succeed, Sylvanas will be forced to reflect on the harrowing path that brought her to the Jailer’s side, and reveal her truest self to her greatest rival. Here, Sylvanas’ complete story is laid bare: from the breaking of the Windrunner family and her rise to Ranger-General; to her own death at the hands of Arthas and her renewed purpose in founding the Forsaken; to the moment she first beheld the Maw, and understood the true consequences of what lay beyond the veil of death. But as her moment of victory draws near, Sylvanas Windrunner will make a choice that may ultimately come to define her. A choice that’s hers alone to make.

About the Author
Christie Golden is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of fifty-six books and more than a dozen short stories in the fields of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. For Blizzard Entertainment, she's contributed five StarCraft® novels, including the “Dark Templar” trilogy, and the Warcraft/World of Warcraft books “Lord of the Clans,” “Rise of the Horde,” “Arthas: Rise of the Lich King,” “War Crimes,” “Before the Storm,” and “Exploring Azeroth: Eastern Kingdoms.” In 2017, she was awarded the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers Faust Award and named a Grandmaster in recognition of thirty years of writing. She currently works full-time for Blizzard Entertainment, where she frequents Azeroth on a regular basis.

Classes

Death Knight

• Unholy
  
  • All damage increased by 5%.

Druid

• Feral
  
  • All damage increased by 3%.
  • Primal Wrath damage increased by 10%.
  • Brutal Slash damage increased by 20%.
  • Swipe damage increased by 15%.
  • Thrash damage increased by 20%.
• Guardian
  
  • [With realm restarts] (4) Set Bonus: Architect's Aligner now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
    Developer note: Architect’s Aligner dealing damage to an uncapped amount of targets is inconsistent with the philosophy we applied earlier in Shadowlands to other similar abilities. As such, we are implementing a fix to this bonus that reduces the amount of damage done beyond 5 targets. Additionally, we will be watching the performance of this bonus and will make additional adjustments if the need arises. Thank you for the feedback regarding this bonus!

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  
  • Beast Cleave now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets (was 5).
  • All damage increased by 3%.

Monk

• Mistweaver
  
  • Spinning Crane Kick damage increased by 30%.

Rogue

• Outlaw
  
  • Blade Flurry now strikes nearby enemies for 50% of normal damage (was 40%).

Shaman

• Elemental
  
  • All damage increased by 5%.

Warlock

• Destruction
  
  • All damage increased by 5%.

Warrior

• Ignore Pain now ignores 55% of the damage (was 50%).
• Protection
  
  • Demoralizing Shout now reduces the damage enemies deal to you by 25% (was 20%).
  • Ignore Pain now reduces the cost of Ignore Pain to 35 Rage (was 40 Rage).
  • Spell Reflection cooldown reduced to 20 seconds (was 25 seconds).
  • Vanguard reduces all damage taken by 15% (was 10%).

Dungeons and Raids

• Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
  
  • The Grand Menagerie
    
    • Fixed an issue where Gluttonous Feast could fail to cast at the beginning of The Grand Menagerie encounter in Tazavesh.
      

• Sepulcher of the First Ones
  
  • Skolex, the Insatiable Ravener
    
    • [With realm restarts] Skolex's health has been reduced by ~6% in Mythic and Heroic difficulties.
      
  • Dausegne, the Fallen Oracle
    
    • [With realm restarts] Dausegne’s health has been reduced by ~6% in Heroic difficulty.
      
    • [With realm restarts] Disintegration Halo vulnerability reduced to 200% in Normal and Raid Finder difficulties.
      
  • Lords of Dread
    
    • [With realm restarts] Swarm of Darkness and Swarm of Decay caused by Mal'Ganis' Unto Darkness will now increase all damage taken by 100% rather than only area-of-effect abilities.
      Developer note: When originally creating the Unto Darkness and Swarm abilities for the Lords of Dread, the idea was intended to be in the flavor of the dreadlords turning into an actual swarm and being adversely affected by area-of-effect abilities such as Flamestrike. However, the way it played out was that this proved to be very limiting in which classes could perform at a required level for harder difficulties. We're making a change to update the vulnerability from area-of-effect damage to all damage taken so that every damage class can enjoy the phase equally.
      
• Rygelon
  
  • [With realm restarts] Reduced boss health by 5% on Heroic difficulty.
    
  • [With realm restarts] Reduced the damage of Stellar Decay by 20% on Heroic difficulty.
    
  • [With realm restarts] Reduced the health of Unstable Quasars by approximately 33% on Heroic difficulty.
    
  • Fixed an issue with Corrupted Wound’s spell description in the Dungeon Journal. Functionality remains unchanged.
    
• The Jailer
  
  • Fixed an issue with Diverted Life Shield's spell description that caused it to display the improper amount of healing. It will now properly show it heals 2% per tick.
    

Zereth Mortis

• Bauble of Pure Innovation now respawns more quickly.

Items and Rewards

• The Optional Reagent slot for Legendary Crafting can now also be unlocked by completing the campaign quest “The Crown of Wills”.
  
• Players must now be on the ground to activate the Personal Containment Trap Toy.
  
• Certified Vouchsafe's cast bar can now be interrupted by moving your character.
  
• Cache of Acquired Treasures will now begin cycling the weapons you can rummage through just before it comes off cooldown.
  
• Cosmic Gladiator's Eternal Aegis - Corrected an issue that could cause the absorb shield to incorrectly fully absorb large single attacks that exceed the remaining absorb amount.

Achievements

• Characters who experienced a bug which prevented the achievement "Renowned" from being earned should now properly earn their achievement upon login if they have 80 Renown.

Pet Battles

• You can now properly queue for a pet battle with the "Find Battle" button while in Zereth Mortis.

Player versus Player

• War Mode
  
  • In War Mode, Kbato's damage versus other player's Kbatos in the "Knocking On Death's Door" quest has been reduced.
    
• Shaman
  
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Chain Heal to heal vehicles in battlegrounds.
    

We’ve just updated the Season of Mastery PTR to a new build 42926 and the realms should be available shortly.

Temple of Ahn’Qiraj

• The damage dealt by the Prophet Skeram and its clones’ Lightning Bolt ability has been increased.
• There have been numerous adjustments to the Prophecy of Chaos effects in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj:
  
  • Tentacles now briefly telegraph their appearance on the ground before spawning.
  • Shadowy Orbs now spawn when a tentacle is destroyed. Are you brave enough to touch them and discover their secrets?
    
    • Please note that the Shadowy Orbs and their related effects are very much a work in progress and will see additional changes and fixes in future PTR builds.
  • Fixed some issues that caused the extra Prophecy of Chaos effects to not clean up properly when encounters ended.

Additionally, we’ve made some adjustments to the AQ40 Character Templates and Cap’n Placeholder’s vendor list on the PTR:

• Newly Created character templates now have Engineering trained to max level.
  
  • Please note that existing templates will not have Engineering fully leveled up. You’ll need to create a new template character in today’s build if you wish to use engineering.
• Cap’n Placeholder now sells Goblin Sapper Charges and various consumables used to remove poison effects.