Demon Invasions Preview, Blue Posts, Tweets, Overwatch - Ana, Elemental Spec Preview

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Datamined PTR Strings, Mace of Crows & Fallen Pennant in 2.4.2

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Ana Amari Unlockables Preview - New Hero Skins, Poses, and Golden Gun

Preview: Demon Invasions
Blizzard posted their Demon Invasion preview today! We previously covered this part of the pre-expansion patch here.

There’s a World of Warcraft: Legion pre-expansion patch coming soon, and that means a great number of changes and improvements will be finding their way into the game. We’ve recently outlined several reasons to get ready for it all here and here.

Today, we’d like to take a closer look at the some of the content that will be coming to Azeroth in the weeks after the pre-expansion patch.

Incursions and Diversions
Around the second or third week of August (no later than August 17 globally), after you’ve had time to play around with the patch and get a feel for the changes, some angry invaders are going to start dropping out of the skies over Azeroth.

You’ll be able to identify where the invasions are currently happening by looking at your world map. As quickly as you can, head out to the zone that’s under attack and lend your aid to the defense of Azeroth.

Each demon invasion takes place in four stages, and each stage ends with a reward of Nethershards—and sometimes a chest. That means it’s always a good time to rush out and fight the Legion.

A week after the invasions begin, the Legion’s assault will begin to intensify. Then, a week after that, the demonic onslaught will intensify even more, increasing your chances to complete the event-only achievements Stand Against The Legion (for completing one invasion) and Defender of Azeroth: Legion Invasions (for completing invasions in all six locations).

Loot Intensifies
When you participate in demon invasions and receive Nethershards, you’ll want to hold on to them. Collect enough, and you can spend them on all sorts of transmogrification armor (there will be four ensembles available: cloth, leather, mail, and plate), new pieces for your neck, fingers, back, and trinket slots, as well as the event-only Felbat Pup battle pet, among and other useful items.

Speaking of weapons, you’ll always want to open the chests you obtain from demon invasions, as they have a chance to drop one of 16 event-only weapons, such as Niskaran Morning Star or Staff of the Inquisiton. At item level 700, these weapons might be more than a transmogrification collection item for you—they might be the perfect thing to pick up and swing at the face of the nearest demon!

Remember to Share
One more item that we’d like to tell you about is a new toy that will be available during the Demon Invasions: the Pocket Fel Spreader. It’s not actually a good idea to leave it in your pocket, but it is a great idea to figure out how to obtain one of these tainted trifles—because this may be your only chance.

For Azeroth!

Blue Posts

Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Havoc Demon Hunter Feedback -- Legion Beta Feedback
Demon Blades is much stronger than intended in this build; this will be corrected before live. The intended change was to increase the Fury generation to allow Demon Blades builds to use Chaos Strike more often than they had been. But the damage done by Demon Blades itself is in line with the old amount of Fury generation, and too high for the current amount. We also agree the talent shouldn't be the highest stationary DPS option on its row due to its passivity, and it will be brought into line for the row. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Balance Druid -- Legion Beta Feedback
Not being able to Prowl from form as a Balance Druid is a bug. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Assassination Rogue -- Legion Beta Feedback
There is no change to Mutilate damage at level 110 in this build. Some data changed under the hood, but tooltips should still be showing the correct damage in-game. This applies to a number of other weapondamage-based attacks on various specs. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Outlaw Rogue -- Legion Beta Feedback
An upcoming build will be shifting a noticeable amount of damage from Saber Slash to Run Through and Between the Eyes. Between the Eyes is getting a slightly higher proportionate increase in order to make it more of a gain to swap to it during Shark Infested Waters. In addition, the bonus on a number of artifact traits is being increased to bring the total damage increase more in line with other artifacts. Expect a few offsetting changes, such as having to reduce Quick Draw's bonus to account for a large buff to Blunderbuss.

We'll keep an eye on the spec's energy economy, and it is improved slightly due to a buffed version of Fatebringer. But particularly due to the high uptime of either Buried Treasure or Grand Melee (or alternatively, Slice and Dice) the spec has significant periods where overcapping energy is more of a risk than having long droughts. Not to mention the short cooldown on Adrenaline Rush compared to the past. So we're not planning at the moment to speed up the spec's pace further. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Elemental Shaman -- Legion Beta Feedback
Just noticed Alpha Wolves has been way overpowered--had missed that and it probably contributed to artifact doing too much damage.

Did something recently make Tempest a lot more popular or overpowered?

Earthquake Totem should be fixed in the next build. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Enhancement Shaman Feedback -- Legion Beta Feedback
An upcoming build will be increasing the baseline damage of Feral Spirits. Alpha Wolf and Doom Wolves will be tuned down somewhat, partially to account for the increased attack power on Feral Spirits, and also because they are already an overly high portion of single-target damage (particularly since Alpha Wolves is AoE-focused, as was correctly noted above). We're okay with wanting to press Crash Lightning 1-2 times during the Feral Spirits duration due to an artifact trait, so long as it's not a gain to use Crash Lightning at other times against a single target (except with Crashing Storm).

Damage of various core abilities is being increased as noted before, as well as a few talents (particularly Windsong and Lightning Shield). Boulderfist should be brought more into line with its row, since it's still somewhat strong even after the various recent changes to Maelstrom pacing. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
You might not be the right person to ask but you announced it If I race change to a gnome hunter, can I tame mechs from the start?
Yes you can (Muffinus)

Character / Items
Can the Darkmoon Deck: Trinkets be upgraded through obliterum? The information in-game doesn't indicate it.
They should be upgradable, and they will be soon on Beta. Thanks for the heads up! (WarcraftDevs)

PvP
This might of been answered but is there a limit to the "Prestige Level" #WOWLegion #WOWPVP #PVPLegion #LegionQA
Yes, but it increases with each season. (holinka)

Will you guys be putting the pvp multipliers in the tooltip of abilities? It's hard to tell without looking it up. #LegionQA
In the future, we hope too. There are technical reasons we haven't done it yet (client memory). (holinka)

To clarify from QA, do i have to prestige 12 times or 4 times if i want a S3 Reward but didnt prestiege S1 and S2?
12 times. (holinka)

Is their gonig to be different PvP Multipliers in RBG's as opposed to Rated arena's?
No (holinka)

Pets and Pet Battles
Oh its alright, DMF is next week and Feasel and VonFeasel are both going down though. P.S. need > 1000 pet cap. Uniques * 3.
you can obtain an item that increases your pet cap in Legion ☆spoilers☆ (Muffinus)

Reputation / Questing
will Archivist Elysiana allow us to play the scenarios once #Legion launches, or will it only show cutscenes? Huge concern 4me
You will play out the full quests, no different than playing them during prelaunch. (Muffinus)

At what rep level can Arcway and Court of Stars be unlocked? Been doing WQs for weeks now and still can't test them.
What's your rep level currently? (WatcherDev)
I'm 6k into Honoured (next rep level being Revered).
2k to go then. But we're adjusting (upwards) the rate at which Nightfallen rep rate is gained. (WatcherDev)

New Overwatch Hero Revealed - Ana, the Support Sniper
Blizzard announced a new Overwatch hero! You can find all of the details on Overpwn.

Gul'Dan Patch Live
Gul'dan went live in Heroes of the Storm this week!

Final Boss - Elemental Shaman Spec Preview
Final Boss is back with a second round of spec previews.

[Droodid]

Soooooooo live on Tuesday for pre-expac patch?

[BurningSkies2018]

I hope this means patch Tuesday.

Damn it Blizzard! Please let it be! lol

[Scaleface]

Ill just leave it here: http://wow.gamepedia.com/PvP_season

S9 Ended with launch of patch 4.2.0 [WOTLK > CATA Pre]
S11 Ended with launch of patch 5.0.4 [CATA > MOP Pre]
S15 Ended with launch of patch 6.0.2 [MOP > WOD Pre]

So, see You in Tuesday

[Fullmetal89]

The way they are doing this is pretty damn stupid. So basically patch will probably go live in the next two weeks. After that we have a huge waiting period before the invasions even start. No mention of the broken shore scenario and the promised early access to DH. If I wasn't already subbed with tokens I would have zero reason to resub.

[Deleted]

"We also agree the talent shouldn't be the highest stationary DPS option on its row due to its passivity, and it will be brought into line for the row." Blizz on DH's demon blades talent

Or maybe it should be a talent at all... jesus how this even make it to the board?

[Eleccybubb]

Wooo a preview on demon invasions. Something we already know about. /s. How about the damn patch date?

[mikkis2k]

Everytime i see patches i cry. Dh wont be that good with all these nerfs evry damn patch/week

[anubas]

Everytime i see patches i cry. Dh wont be that good with all these nerfs evry damn patch/week

If you remember, even with the nerfs, Death Knights could solo the universe for weeks after Wrath dropped (I still remember dks soloing Ulduar back during wrath). Chances are that demon hunters will be OP too.

And sorry if this came across as trollish, that isn't what I'm looking for. Have a great day!

[Shudder]

If it were Tuesday they would have said Tuesday not "soon". Basic logic.

[Fullmetal89]

Basic logic.

12+years of experience playing WoW tells me that relying on 'basic logic' when it comes to Blizzard is futile.

[JaceDraccus]

The way they are doing this is pretty damn stupid. So basically patch will probably go live in the next two weeks. After that we have a huge waiting period before the invasions even start. No mention of the broken shore scenario and the promised early access to DH. If I wasn't already subbed with tokens I would have zero reason to resub.

They've already said Demon Hunter early access will be no later than Aug 17, same as the demon invasions. Broken Shore will probably be on the same schedule.

And seriously, 'huge waiting period'? 2-3 weeks is huge now?

[DonSerrot]

I'm actually pretty happy with the wait. When I hopped onto the PTR to check out the changes to my class it was a pretty substantial change to how I play and I was glad I took the time to get on there and figure stuff out. I'm also going to end up missing the first week of the patch because it's hitting right when I leave for a trip. Them giving people a couple weeks means I won't miss anything while I'm gone.

[manypillars]

I hope they don't really plan on second to third week of August. Never mind the invasion being incredibly short if that happens, some classes are unrecognizable and people won't get a chance to get a reasonable feel for how they work before they need to commit.

[Awsyme]

Them mentioning the 2nd or 3rd weeks in august makes it seem very unlikely the patch is on the 19th, unfortunately. I'm guessing probably the beginning of August.

[Deleted]

"Elemental Shaman -- Legion Beta Feedback
Just noticed Alpha Wolves has been way overpowered--had missed that and it probably contributed to artifact doing too much damage.
Did something recently make Tempest a lot more popular or overpowered?
Earthquake Totem should be fixed in the next build."


uh?

[Sycharis]

Everytime i see patches i cry. Dh wont be that good with all these nerfs evry damn patch/week

It's to bring it in line with other classes. If they don't do it now, they'll hit the class extremely hard in live and people will be extremely disappointed.

Also, the last three expansion prepatches have released on the day the PVP season ends, so that's the most likely date for patch launch.

[Frozenbeef]

Only having 2 weeks to play the invasions seems way too short :/

[sheggaro]

so at first we get practically nothing and then the cool stuff is only avaiable for 13 days?

seems stupid

[Queen of Hamsters]

Only thing that worries me is the time we'll have to do the demon invasions... If they begin on the 17th, we'll have 13 days. Somehow I get the feeling it'll be one hell of a rush if that's the case.