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by Published on 2020-04-01 07:19 PM

Patch Notes Draft
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
World of Warcraft Patch 8.8.8 Build 88888 WORK IN PROGRESS


April 1, 2020

Tech writer note – looking for edits from all producers and team leads here. Please get back to us by EOD tomorrow, and please don’t leak this doc like one of you leaked all the new professions. Oof.

NEW FEATURES

TERRIFIC VISIONS

Now that N’Zoth is vanquished and all of Azeroth’s problems are solved forever, players will delve into future-looking scenarios that offer a new way of helping Azeroth’s champions see past the old god. With LACEC (Light Assisted Corruption Eradication Conversion), you’ll use Titan technology to step into a look at what the future might hold after everyone stops fighting.

In Terrific Visions, you’ll keep an eye on your Vanity meter while enjoying all that life has to offer. If your Vanity runs out, you’ll be forced to read Torn Pages from N’Zoth’s Diary. For example:

I am an Old God in this lonely city.
I think about sad things; no one calls me pretty.
“My name is N’Zoth” I scrawled over there.
I never meant for ME to feel this despair.


NEW ALLIED RACES

HIGH DWARVES

The long wait is finally over, and the much-requested High Dwarves are finally coming to Azeroth. There’s not really more to say about the glory of the High Dwarves that hasn’t already been said in the General Discussion forum.

MECHATAUREN

Moooove over, all you Horde races who are cursed with flesh. We’re about to raise the steaks on the udderly fantastic notion of Tauren+mechanical bioengineering. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t steer you wrong.

KUL TIRAN WORGEN


HIGHMOUNTAIN GOBLIN


NEW MYTHIC KEYSTONE DUNGEON AFFIXES

New affix: Legit Questioning – Within 3-5 minutes of each boss kill, 30 to 50 feral hogs run into your dungeon. How do you kill them?

New affix: Tub Thumping – With each pull, you get knocked down. But don’t worry—you’ll get up again. We’re never gonna keep you down.

NEW ESSENCE

Now, the most-accomplished and powerful players – those who do a significant amount of pet battling every single day for many consecutive days – can obtain Vision of Furrpection .

Major Power – Reflects all incoming damage. This effect scales with the number of max-level battle pets you have in your collection, to a maximum duration of 30 seconds, with a 60 second cooldown.

Minor Power– You enter stealth after standing still for 2 seconds. Thereafter, moving does not break stealth.

Developers’ note: We haven’t yet completed our tuning pass on this Essence, but we wanted to get it into players’ hands as soon as possible. We’re really looking forward to seeing if players find a use for it.

NEW MICRO-HOLIDAY: MOTHER’S DAY

She’s cared for you through so many difficulties. Now, it’s your turn to show your appreciation for her. Please make a note on the in-game calendar and actually show up for this easy quest chain. You only have to do it once per year, and it means so much to MOTHER.

NEW MICRO-HOLIDAY: MAGNI-FICENT TRAVELS

For one day only, Magni is just going to go wherever he wants and it’s up to you to find your own way there. Magni might lead you to visit your bodyguard in Nazjatar who’s kind of lonely now. He might want to go pull some pranks. When you finally get to him, have fun! Set the Stormwind Park back on fire or something.

CHANGES

CORRUPTION EFFECTS

  • Infinite Stars has to be renamed, because every time we reduce Infinite Stars by 20%, we’re left with Infinite Stars. Even just pondering it gives us headaches. How about “Many Countable Stars”?
  • Echoing Void no longer sounds like a car alarm between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. when people are trying to sleep over here!
  • Ineffable Truth can’t be changed.
  • Twisted Appendage has been given an additional twin tentacle: Twisted Sister.
  • Gushing Wound has been reduced to gush 20% less than it gushed before.

ESSENCES

  • Worldvein Resonance now hurts your ears 20% less.
  • Memory of Lucid Dreams is now 10% more memorable.
  • Conflict and Strife is now only obtainable through Fishing.
  • Vitality Conduit now yells at you in the voice of Shia LaBeouf to “Just Duit!!”
  • Vision of Furrpection has been renamed and is now called Furrification Protocollar.

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES

  • After receiving a great amount of negative sentiment having something to do with the Big Love Rocket mount, we’ve decided to make the Big Love Rocket mount 50% larger, and give it a 200% speed boost. Thank you for your feedback.
  • Tortollan scribes are so very tired of watching you stumble around, that their standards have been lowered by 90%. Draw whatever shape you want. Go nuts. Just finish and get out of here.
  • All bells have been removed from the game. We’re not sure why, but some raccoon showed up, said something about a house, and ran off with them.
  • Essence of Fire, Essence of Water, Essence of Earth, and Essence of Undeath are no longer account-wide.

Classes

Death Knight
  • Death Grip never really did what it says and cause death, rather than mere inconvenience to the target, so Death Grip has been renamed Tug Throat.
  • Now that everyone is a Death Knight, we’ve added a new Death Knight ability: Directory – activate to hold up a chart that you can compare other players to, in order to figure out what race they are.

Demon Hunter
  • New ranged DPS spec: Tizzy. With a Tizzy DH, you’ll still jump around and make funny noises like there’s a bee on you, but you’ll do it from 40 yards away.
  • Eye Beam has been given those new high-intensity bulbs, and now blinds everyone in front of you for miles.

Druid
  • Added a new Druid ability: White Claw – disorients you and frustrates your enemies. It shows up everywhere, even though you’ve never once heard anyone say that they like it.
  • Shaking a Druid while in Tree of Life form now has a chance to spawn a swarm of angry wasps.

Hunter
  • Beast Mastery Hunters whose pets do 70% or more of the player’s total damage are now given a comfy bench to sit on during fights.
  • Freezing Trap is now 30% less effective on targets who keep a sweater at the office.

Mage
  • Mages who say in voices comms that they’re putting down a portal to Boralus, but then it’s actually a portal to Dalaran Crater, are awarded the Achievement “Why Do They Fall For This Every Time?”.
  • Blink distance reduced by 50%. You guys really need to tone it down with the Blinking. It’s gotten out of hand. Don’t make us turn this Blink around and go right back where we came from! Stop Blinking! I’ll give you something to Blink about!!

Monk
  • Ironskin Brew and Purifying Brew are now noticeably less hoppy than they were a few years ago during the hops craze.
  • New Mastery: Savasana. All Monks have transcended to an elevated state of being, where the answers to all problems are beyond the need for violence. Monk characters are prevented from casting any damage-dealing abilities or using any attacks whatsoever. Namaste.

Paladin
  • Lay on Hands no longer causes your hands to get all tingly and numb and then you wake up and shake them and they feel so weird.
  • Divine Steed updated to look less like you’re just running away from a fight, except when followed by the use of Divine Shield and Hearthstone.

Priest
  • Xal’atath, Blade of the Black Empire voicelines updated in the hopes that you’ll start using it again. You used to be so close and nowadays you barely even see each other. Baby please come back.
  • Corrected an issue that would occasionally cause Holy Word: Serenity to take the sky from you.

Rogue
  • Rogues who save their Sap can now make it into a nice syrup.
  • Rogues who use Cloak of Shadows, Vanish, and Shadowstep in rapid succession now disappear from the game altogether.

Shaman
  • No adjustments needed.

Warlock
  • Seed of Corruption must now be planted in the correct time of year and moisture, or else it will become Flowerpot of Disappointment.
  • Doom duration increased to be a really long time, but not so long that you’d call it eternal.

Warrior
  • Heroic Leap now occasionally ends in a pirouette.
  • Pummel now looks even more misspelled if you stare at it.

WoW CLASSIC

Following a tremendous amount of feedback, we’re happy to announce that WoW Classic now comes in three new old flavors:

  • WoW ORANGE VANILLA
  • CHERRY WoW CLASSIC
  • DIET DR. CLASSIC

There are no changes to WoW Classic in this patch.
by Published on 2020-04-01 11:44 AM

Patch 8.3 Hotfixes - March 31st, 2020
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Dungeons and Raids
  • Ashvane Warden
    • The ground visual for Lockdown should remain visible when Projected Textures is disabled in the System Settings menu.

Items and Rewards
  • Legion Raids and Dungeons
    • [With regional restarts] Legacy loot rules are now in place for Legion raids and dungeons.
      • Developers’ note: Standard encounters drop an amount of loot scaled by the amount of players in the raid, which results in fewer pieces for players who defeated encounters in small groups or as a solo player. In Legacy loot rules, raid and dungeon encounters will drop a fixed quantity of class-agnostic loot, regardless of the group size.
by Published on 2020-03-31 05:24 PM

This Week in World of Warcraft


Legion Instances Legacy Loot
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With scheduled weekly maintenance the week of March 31, we’re enabling Legacy loot rules in Legion raids and dungeons.

We’re reached that point in an expansion where the content from the previous expansion no longer requires a full group, and the rewards are primarily sought by transmog collectors. With this change, Legion raid and dungeon encounters will drop a fixed quantity of class-agnostic loot. Today, if you and one other player enter Emerald Nightmare on Mythic difficulty and kill Nythendra, it’s unlikely that you’ll receive any loot, since drop rates normally scale to the number of players. After this change, Nythendra will always drop 5 items from her loot table, regardless of your group size.

Dungeons and many of the lower-difficulty raid bosses in Legion are already soloable by well-equipped Battle for Azeroth characters, though some bosses, especially on Mythic difficulty, may still require you to bring a few friends. Nonetheless, this should amount to a great increase in the availability of Legion transmog gear.

See you there!

Grand Empress Shek'zara World Boss
Grand Empress Shek'zara is up in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms!
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Grand Empress Shek'zara
With the awakening of N'Zoth, Shek'zara, empress of the mantid, pledged her swarm to the old god's will. In service of her dark master, she unleashed her forces upon the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to claim Pandaria in N'Zoth's name.



  • Overview - Grand Empress Shek'zara uses her powerful voice and Zara'thik Swarmguard to overwhelm enemies.
  • Song of the Empress - Shek'zara chants the Song of the Empress, emitting sound waves that travel outwards from her.
    Players that come into contact with Song of the Empress are Silenced and suffer 4 Nature damage every 0.5 sec for 3 sec.
  • Force and Verve - Shek'zara shouts, inflicting 33 Nature damage every 1 sec for 6 sec.
    Players standing in a Sound Barrier take 70% reduced damage from Force and Verve.
  • Summon Swarmguard - Shek'zara summons her Zara'thik Swarmguard to aid her in battle.
    • Zara'thik Swarmguard -
      • Bladestorm - Charges to a player's location and spins a blade around the caster, inflicting 33 Physical damage to all nearby enemies every 1 sec.
    • Zara'thik Ambershaper -
      • Amber Bolt Volley - Fires bolts of hardened amber at all nearby enemies, inflicting 25 Nature damage.


LevelTypeSlotNameModel Viewer
445FingerFingerLoop of Abhorrent Celerity
445ClothHeadManiacal Speaker's Cover
 Modelviewer
445LeatherHeadGuise of the Voracious Prowler
 Modelviewer
445MailLegsGreaves of Shattered Thoughts
 Modelviewer
445PlateLegsChitinous Conqueror's Legplates
 Modelviewer


N'Zoth Assaults in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms

Assault: The Black Empire

Assault: Mantid

To learn more about the N'Zoth Assaults in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms, click the banner below for an in depth guide.



Island Expeditions for the Week of March 31, 2020
The Island Expeditions for the week are:
  • Un'gol Ruins with Hozen
  • Jorundall with Vargul
  • Whispering Reef with Murlocs

The Salvage Crates available for purchase this week are:

Click the banner below to learn more about Island Expedition Rewards and Loot Tables.



World Quest Bonus Event
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Chart a course across Kul Tiras and Zandalar for this week’s Bonus Event – World Quests.

This Week

All week, open your map (default hotkey-"m") and select any of the Kul Tiras or Zandalar regions to view the World Quests available to you. To find out more about each World quest, simply hover your mouse over a World Quest on the map to see what tasks are needed to complete it, the rewards you’ll receive, and the time remaining that the quest is available to you.

Look for the following all week long:

  • Chronicler Toopa in Boralus or Chronicler Shoopa in Zuldazar has a quest for you—The World Awaits. You can also start the quest from within the Adventure Guide (Shift-J).
    • Quest requirement: Complete 20 World Quests in Kul Tiras, Zandalar, Mechagon, or Nazjatar
    • Reward: 1,000 War Resources
  • Passive buff: +50% to Reputation gains from World Quests

If you’ve been looking to impress some emissaries, this is the week to do it!

Every Week

The Bonus Events system consists of a rotating schedule of different activities, currently scheduled to run each week beginning on Tuesdays. Each Bonus Event grants a passive bonus to a particular game activity and offers a once-per-event quest with a noteworthy reward for accomplishing a related goal. The in-game calendar can serve as your one-stop reference for the event schedule. The Adventure Guide also offers a direct link to active Bonus Events, allowing you to easily accept any associated quests.

PvP Brawl: Comp Storm
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Jump into Arathi Basin for a head-to-head battle against AI opponents during Comp Stomp— running March 31–April 7.

Darkmoon Faire
The Darkmoon Faire starts this weekend on April 5th. If you're grinding reputation with the new 8.3 factions, Uldum Accord and Rajani, pick up the Darkmoon Top Hat or the WHEE! buff to increase reputation gains by 10% for 60 minutes.



March of the Tadpoles
March of the Tadpoles starts this weekend on April 5th. March of the Tadpoles is a micro-holiday that sends you to Borean Tundra to an area with baby murlocs.




Call to Arms: Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Mechagon and Stormsong Valley
This week's Call to Arms is Call to Arms: Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Call to Arms: Mechagon and Call to Arms: Stormsong Valley.

Head to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Mechagon and Stormsong Valley with warmode enabled to kill players of the opposing faction. This will reward you with Quartermaster's Note, Aspirant's Equipment Cache, Honor, Conquest and Reputation with either The Honorbound or 7th Legion.
by Published on 2020-03-31 03:37 AM

Mythic Dungeon International Update - Remote Broadcasts
Blizzard has announced that the Mythic Dungeon International will be moving to remote broadcasts in order to protect the health and safety of the casters and staff.

by Published on 2020-03-29 02:08 AM

WoW Classic - Burning Crusade Official Blizzard Survey
Yesterday, players on Reddit began reporting that they received an official survey from Blizzard asking questions about a hypothetical Burning Crusade Classic Server. The questions asked are listed below. Thanks to soramac on the classicwow subreddit for the photo!

  • How interested are you in a "Classic" version of Burning Crusade?
  • Thinking about the potential ways a player could start a character in "Classic" Burning Crusade, which of the following would you prefer most?
    • Continue playing my current Classic character on my existing server as it progresses to the Burning Crusade expansion, with the option to transfer to a Classic server that will never progress past level 60.
    • Continue playing my current Classic character on my existing server that will never progress past 60, with the option to transfer to a Burning Crusade server.
    • Start a brand new character from Level 58 on a new Burning Crusade server.
    • Start a brand new character from Level 1 on a new Burning Crusade server.
    • None of the above




Diablo Community Manager Brandy Camel Leaving Blizzard
Diablo Community Manager Brandy Camel, also known as Nevalistis, is leaving Blizzard to take on the role of Dungeons and Dragons Community Manager at Wizards of the Coast! We wish her all the best!

Originally Posted by blizzard (Blue Tracker)
This is, undoubtedly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. Not gonna lie, it took me a few tries.

March 27, 2020 will be my final day as Diablo Community Manager, and at Blizzard Entertainment. I’m not leaving for any ill reasons; my team here has always been understanding and kind, every developer I’ve had the honor of interacting with has been delightfully passionate, and the decision to leave was ultimately mine alone. I have an opportunity to explore a new and very different adventure, and if you’re curious about that, I’ll share more about it on my personal channels. Sometimes, opportunity presents itself and you just gotta roll the dice.

What I want to focus on is expressing my gratitude to this community. For welcoming me when I stumbled in at the announcement of Reaper of Souls. For making me feel at home as I was trembling on livestream, fighting stage fright while introducing the expansion to the world. For all the smiles, high-fives, hugs, and selfies at conventions (especially BlizzCon). For the absolute conviction and passion for Sanctuary that I see in every player’s post, whether it’s excitement over the latest Season or constructive criticism for your favorite class. Regardless of highs and lows, this is one of the best communities out there, and the heart of it is warm, caring, and filled with people who just want more Diablo.

Thank you for permitting me to be a part of your community. Thank you for reading my weird blogs and tolerating my terrible puns and memes. And thank you for staying awhile to listen. I’ve had an incredible opportunity learn and grow as person that I’ll carry with me the rest of my life, and I can’t wait to delve the depths of the Burning Hells and face down the mother of Sanctuary alongside the rest of you.

Lastly, rest assured that the Diablo community will be left in good hands. I’ve spent a fair amount of my final weeks here preparing to pass the torch to those who will follow in my footsteps and working with the team here to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible. You won’t be left unheard or unacknowledged, but please be understanding while the next folks get settled in. We’re all here to battle the demons of Hell together, after all!

I’ll see you in Sanctuary, adventurers.

DLC#719
DLC #719 has been released!


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