World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Hello pet battlers!

We’ve seen some discussion around pet battle changes coming in Visions of N’Zoth, and we’d like to discuss those, as well as changes we currently have planned for a future content update.

The Weather Outside is Fight-ful
Weather effects have always been intended to slightly change the rules of pet battles. Sandstorm is great against pets that do weaker attacks, Sunlight is great for healing abilities, and Cleansing Rain is great for aquatic abilities. However, Mudslide and Blizzard both fell by the wayside in terms of being impactful or rule-changing outcomes. So in Visions of N’Zoth, both of these weather effects are being updated with new added effects in addition to their existing effects:

• Blizzard
  
  • Now also increases all elemental ability damage by 25%.
• Mudslide
  
  • Now also increases all critical damage dealt by 25%.

To be really clear about the Mudslide change: Critical strikes usually hit for 150% of normal damage. Mudslide will now increase that to 175% of normal damage.

We’ve also been thinking for a while that we should add a new weather type to the game, so Visions of N’Zoth will also introduce a new weather type: Toxic Fumes. This deals Dragonkin damage to the current enemy pet and applies the Toxic Fumes weather effect.

• Toxic Fumes
  
  • Increases the duration of all hostile damage over time effects by 1 round.
  • All pets are considered Poisoned while Toxic Fumes is active.

Max No More
In Visions of N’Zoth, all of the new outdoor pet battle World Quests in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms will scale their level to match the highest level pet currently slotted on your team, instead of always being a level 25 enemy pet. This will also be the case for Nazjatar and Mechagon – all of the pet battle World Quests there are being updated. You can check them all out with a team of three level 1 pets!

Stat Changes
In Visions of N’Zoth, we’re also changing how percent-damage reduction abilities stack with each other. Currently, if you’re fighting a pet like Unit 17 in Mechagon (a Boss pet that passively takes 50% less damage), and Unit 17 uses Crouch, Unit 17 becomes immune to damage because the two 50% damage reduction effects are added to each other. In Visions of N’Zoth, the plan is to cap damage reduction at -75%. Using Unit 17 as an example, while Crouch is active, it will take 75% reduced damage instead of 100% reduced damage. This will smooth out the challenge with some enemy bosses.

Please note that abilities like Dodge or Deflection will continue to avoid all damage. Those will not be impacted by this change.

What the Future Holds
In a future update, we’re targeting a number of balance changes we want to make, which will amount to lowering the effectiveness of some pets and strategies. Again, these changes will not be happening in Visions of N’Zoth, but we wanted to give you ample warning time that changes are coming. While we don’t have specific numbers or details to share right now, here are some examples of abilities that we’re going to take a close look at:

• Black Claw and similar abilities that increase damage taken by a flat amount.
• Hunting Party and similar abilities such as Flock.
• The Shattered Defenses debuff effect from abilities such as Hunting Party or Flock.
• Any large percent-damage-taken or percent-damage-dealt buffs or debuffs.
• Twilight Meteorite and similar long-cooldown damage-splitting abilities.
• The Jar of Smelly Liquid ability.
• Hermit Crab

Of course that last one isn’t an ability, but Hermit Crab incorrectly has a higher stat budget than it should, and it will have its stats reduced to bring it in line with other similar pets.

A goal we have when making many new pet battle World Quests or encounters is to create puzzles that players can counter and “solve”-- ideally with the option to use a variety of pets and tools to do so. When a few pets have such strong synergies that they can deal massive damage in just a few rounds and almost trivially beat these enemies, it becomes problematic. Do we make new challenges only beatable by the highest damage combos, or do we make them generally solveable and therefore immediately smashed by massive damage?

We don’t want to ruin the feel of combination abilities, so we aren’t going to make Black Claw no longer interact with Hunting Party or Flock, but we want to make sure these abilities are dealing appropriate damage. And we want to make sure that secondary effects such as Shattered Defenses are being accounted for with regards to balance.

When we have further specifics, we will be sure to let you know.

Get ready to put your skills to the test in WoW Classic. The PvP Honor system and world raid bosses Lord Kazzak and Azuregos are now available.

Lord Kazzak
Gather a group of your best trackers and fighters to venture into the Blasted Lands. Lord Kazzak resides deep in the Tainted Scar and patrols the area, ready to smite all who dare cross his path. Prepare yourselves for a fast and furious battle against time and watch out for his Shadow Bolt Volley, which causes massive amounts of raid-wide damage.

Location: Tainted Scar—Blasted Lands
Suggested Level: 60
Players Suggested: 40
Associated Quests: Priest—While players have a small chance to get the The Eye of Shadow as a random drop from elite demons in the world, Lord Kazzak is guaranteed to drop it. Following the quest, The Balance of Light and Shadow to its completion will reward the weapons Benediction or Anathema.

Azuregos
A member of the Blue Dragonflight, Azuregos makes his home in Azshara, guarding the magical artifacts left behind there. You’ll want to gather a group of comrades-at-arms to withstand his frosty reception and lay claim to the items he protects. To the victors go the spoils, and for some Hunters this means laying claim to the Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina. This item has a low chance to drop on elite blue dragons, but is a guaranteed item drop from Azuregos.

Location: Azshara
Suggested Level: 60
Players Suggested: 40


PvP Honor System
The PvP Honor system has arrived in WoW Classic, opening the way for players to climb the ranks and earn PvP rewards.

Climbing the Ladder
Facing enemies who are within 10 levels of your own character and defeating them will earn you Honorable Kills. These Honorable Kills will help you advance in the PvP system and unlock access to a variety of rewards, such as a PvP trinket, cloak, potions, and more.

Not all Honorable Kills are valued the same, however. Killing the same enemy multiple times will result in a decreasing amount of Honor gained until they aren’t worth anything more through the end of the day, when the system resets the diminishing returns.

Diminishing Returns from repeated kills on a single target are as follows:

• 1st: 100% of Honor
  
• 2nd: 75% of Honor
  
• 3rd: 50% of Honor
  
• 4th: 25% of Honor
  
• 5th (and beyond): 0% Honor

Diminishing Returns also apply to killing faction leaders.

Honorable Kill values are also weighted by the defeated player’s own rank and level. You’ll earn more Contribution Points by defeating players who have more PvP experience under their belt and have reached a higher rank than by defeating players who are new to the battlefield. Each week your rank will be updated based on your activity relative to the other members of your faction, but climbing to the top won’t be easy—it will take regular participation to maintain or increase your rank.

You can also gain a large number of Honor by killing city faction leaders in Darnassus, Ironforge, Orgrimmar, Stormwind, Thunder Bluff, and the Undercity. Once Battlegrounds are available in WoW Classic, these will also provide Honor.

Falling From Grace
You will be given Dishonorable Kills for killing civilian NPCs which immediately impacts your Honor rating. Every dishonorable kill costs you some of the honor that you’ve earned in previous weeks, making it difficult to reach the higher ranks as long as you have any dishonorable kills counted on your record at all. These will appear in the Honor tab immediately.

Tracking Your Meteoric Rise


You can check your status in the character information window (C) in the Honor tab. This shows your current rank as well as your honorable kills for the current day, the previous day, the week, the previous week, and over your character’s lifetime.

There are 14 ranks, and each rank provides access to new rewards. You’ll need to head over to the Officer’s Barracks in Stormwind or Orgrimmar to purchase your new items.


Epic new challenges await—happy hunting!

WoW's 15th Anniversary

• Spellstone Delight now breaks upon taking damage.
  
• Reduced the speed at which Defile would increase in area and damage during Memories of Azeroth: Wrath of the Lich King.
  
• The achievement Memories of Fel, Frost and Fire is now account-wide.
  
• The Obsidian Worldbreaker mount will now be immediately rewarded once a player earns Memories of Fel, Frost and Fire (previously it was delivered via in-game mail).

WoW Classic

• The Windsor’s Frenzy buff is again properly restricted to the small area around Marshal Windsor.
  
  • Developers’ note: This correction restores the buff’s functionality to its original 1.12 behavior.
    

On Friday, November 15, starting at 10:00 a.m. PST, join us on the Broxigar realm in the Visions of N’Zoth PTR for two updated PvP experiences. We’re going to playtest:

Deepwind Gorge Redesigned
In Visions of N’Zoth, Deepwind Gorge has been redesigned. It’s now a capture-point map with five nodes to fight over.

For this playtest, log into the PTR and open Group Finder (default hotkey: i), then switch to the Player vs. Player tab on the bottom of the window and queue for a quick match in the Specific Battleground Deepwind Gorge .

After you’ve gorged on Deepwind, please return here and look for our feedback thread.

Teeming Islands Brawl
These are 10v10 PvP Islands that you can queue for as a Brawl. All appropriate rewards from doing Islands are available, so you can finish both the Brawl weekly and your Island weekly for Azerite in this one.

The map selection will only be the larger islands. For this PTR test, we’re using Havensworth and Jorundall.

To playtest this with us, log into the PTR and open Group Finder (default hotkey: i), then select the active PvP Brawl and queue up. Afterward, please come back to this forum and look for our Teeming Islands Brawl feedback thread.
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We look forward to seeing you on Broxigar in the PTR at 10:00 a.m. PST on Friday, and we really appreciate all of your testing and feedback!

Any word on when this Keyring patch will happen, if not?
Yes – the Keyring will come to WoW Classic with our first patch to the game client later this year.
We don’t yet have a certain date for the patch, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.

So Phase =/= Patch?
Correct. We’re able to turn on content such as Dire Maul or World Bosses without having to change the game client and require downtime the way a patch does.

Sorry for the confusion.

To answer some questions in regards to the Collector’s Edition and its content:
In the coming months, we will announce our retail-only Collector’s Edition to commemorate the release of Shadowlands, featuring everything in the Epic Edition, and more!

In the Visions of N’Zoth PTR, testers will soon see initial changes that we’re making to improve how brightly-glowing eyes look on many player-characters. In today’s build, this will be noticeable for Blood Elves, Night Elves, and all races of Death Knights.

As we discussed at BlizzCon, we are bringing many new customization options to player-characters in Shadowlands, and this is an early step that we’re taking to lay groundwork for updating this particular look.

We expect to update brightly-glowing eyes further in future builds of the Visions of N’Zoth PTR.

Thank you for your testing and feedback!