World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Achievements

• The criteria for Azerite Admiral, Tell Me a Tale, and Helping Hand should now combine progress from multiple characters on the same account. Please log in on every character that has progress toward these achievements to be credited.

Characters

• You can now whistle at Cap'n Crackers to have him ride on your shoulder.

Classes

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Balance
    
    • Starsurge and Starfall damage increased by 15%.
      
  
  
• Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Arcane
    
    • All damage increased by 3%.
      
  
  
• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Tremor Totem should no longer take an unintended amount of additional damage when players attack it.
    
  
  
• Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Destruction
    
    • Conflagrate, Incinerate, and Immolate damage all increased by 10%.
      
  
  
• Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Fury
    
    • All damage increased by 6%.
      

Items

• Heart of Azeroth
• (Healer) Ephemeral Recovery mana increased by 15%.
• (Healer) Savior trigger threshold increased to 50% health (was 35%).
  
• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Bone Spike Graveyard: damage increased by 100%.
    
  • Unholy
    
    • Festering Doom: damage increased by 25%.
      
  
  
• Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Havoc
    
    • Eyes of Rage damage increased by 20%.
      
  • Furious Gaze haste increased by 40% and duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
    
  • Revolving Blades damage reduced by 35%.
    
  • Thirsting Blades damage increased by 70%.
    
  
  
• Vengeance
  
  • Revel in Pain absorption increased by 20%.
    
  
  
• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Craggy Bark absorption increased by 15%.
    
  • Masterful Instincts bonuses increased by 10%.
    
  • Balance
    
    • Dawning Sun damage increased by 40%.
      
    • Streaking Stars damage reduced by 40%
      
    • Sunblaze damage bonus increased by 35% against non-players.
  • Feral
    
    • Iron Jaws damage increased by 66% against non-players.
  • Guardian
    
    • Gory Regeneration healing increase increased by 15%.
      
  
  
• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Rapid Reload damage increased by 25%, and tooltip corrected to read “more than 2 targets”.
    
  • Beast Mastery
    
    • Pack Alpha damage increased by 60% against non-players.
      
    • Dance of Death agility increased by 20%.
      
  • Marksmanship
    
    • Unerring Vision critical strike increased by 100%.
      
    • Focused Fire damage increased by 30%.
      
  • Survival
    
    • Blur of Talons agility increased by 65%.
      
    • Up Close and Personal damage increased by 40%.
      
  
  
• Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Arcane
    
    • Galvanizing Spark damage reduced by 30% against non-players.
      
    • Explosive Echo damage reduced by 35%.
      
  • Frost
    
    • Frigid Grasp intellect increased by 100%.
      
    • Packed Ice damage increased by 120%, and increased by 45% if used with Splitting Ice. Damage reduced by 50% against players.
      
    • Glacial Assault proc chance increased to 20% (was 10%).
      
  
  
• Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Burst of Life healing increased by 20%.
      
  • Windwalker
    
    • Open Palm Strikes damage increased by 60% against non-players.
      
  
  
• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Protection
    
    • Dauntless Divinity block increased by 20%.
      
    • Judicious Defense absorption increased by 10%.
      
  • Retribution
    
    • Divine Right strength increased by 40%, and duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      
    • Expurgation damage increased by 15%.
      
  
  
• Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Depth of the Shadows healing increased by 20%.
    
  • Holy
    
    • Blessed Sanctuary bonus increased by 10%.
      
    • Permeating Glow bonus increased by 15%.
      
  • Shadow
    
    • Spiteful Apparitions damage bonus is increased by 75% if you don’t have Auspicious Spirits talent.
      
    • Searing Dialogue damage increased by 150%.
      
  
  
• Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Assassination
    
    • Poisoned Wire critical strike increased by 50%.
      
    • Sharpened Blades benefit from having multiple copies of this trait active has been reduced.
      
  • Outlaw
    
    • Brigand's Blitz haste increased by 50%.
      
  • Subtlety
    
    • Blade in the Shadows damage reduced by 25%.
      
    • Sharpened Blades damage reduced by 30% (unchanged in PvP). The benefit of having multiple copies of this trait active is reduced.
      
    • The First Dance now grants 2 stacks of the buff, and critical strike bonus reduced by 25%.
      
  
  
• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Enhancement
    
    • Strength of Earth damage increased by 60%.
      
    • Roiling Storm damage increased by 100% against non-players.
      
  • Restoration
    
    • Soothing Waters healing increased by 10%.
      
  
  
• Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Arms
    
    • Executioner's Precision damage increased by 75% against non-players.
      
    • Test of Might strength reduced by 15%.
      
  • Fury
    
    • Bloodcraze critical strike increased by 100%.
      
    • Reckless Flurry damage reduced by 25%.
      
  • Protection
    
    • Reinforced Plating strength increased by 10%.
      
  
  
• Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Affliction
    
    • Dreadful Calling damage increased by 30%.
      
  • Demonology
    
    • Forbidden Knowledge damage increased by 66% against non-players, and the benefit of having multiple copies of this trait active is reduced.
      
    • Umbral Blaze damage increased by 20%.
      
    • Explosive Potential buff duration increased to 15 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      
  • Destruction
    
    • Accelerant duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
      
    • Crashing Chaos damage reduced by 30% against non-players.
      
    • Rolling Havoc duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      

Player versus Player

• Razdunk’s Big Red Button now deals 25% less damage in PvP combat.
  
• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Unholy
    
    • Last Surprise (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 35% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  
  
• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • The healing of Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth provided by Restoration Affinity is reduced by 30% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
    
  • Regrowth healing reduced by 25% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
    
  • Feral
    
    • Raking Ferocity (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  • Restoration
    
    • All Restoration Druid healing reduced by 10% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
    • Focused Growth increases the healing of Lifebloom by 15% (was 25%).
      
    • Focused Growth reduces the mana cost of Lifebloom by 15% (was 40%).
      
    • Grove Tending (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 25% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  
  
• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    • Damage done by the Hunter’s pet reduced by 18% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  • Survival
    
    • Latent Poison (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 30% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  
  
• Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Mana regeneration reduced by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
  
  
• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Holy
    
    • Mana regeneration reduced by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
  
  
• Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Discipline
    
    • Mana regeneration reduced by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
    • Focused Will decreases damage taken by 10% per stack when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 20%).
      
  
  
• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Elemental
    
    • Lava Shock (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 35% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  • Restoration
    
    • Rippling Waters healing reduced by 33%.
      
    • Riptide healing reduced by 15% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
    • Spirit Link mana increased by 50%.
      
    • Spirit Link now has a 1.5 second cast time and redistributes 25% damage (was 35%).
      
    • Surging Tide (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 25% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
  
  
• Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Arms
    
    • Defensive Stance reduces damage dealt by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 10%).
      
    • Lord of War (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 55% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 40% reduced).
      

Professions

• Herbalism
  
  • Herbalists will now receive more Anchor Weed from nodes at rank 2 and 3.
    

Quests

• The ability Throw Rock should no longer one-shot targets on "Matchmaker".

World Quests

• Resolved an issue that could cause the "Set Sail" to not properly display the quest objective.

With scheduled maintenance this week, we intend to make some targeted adjustments to Azerite Traits:

All Classes

• (Healer) Ephemeral Recovery mana increased by 15%.
• (Healer) Savior trigger threshold increased to 50% health (was 35%).

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Blood/Unholy) Bone Spike Graveyard: damage increased by 100%.
• (Unholy) Festering Doom: damage increased by 25%.

Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Havoc) Eyes of Rage: damage increased by 20%.
• (Havoc) Furious Gaze: Haste increased by 40% and duration increased to 12 sec.
• (Havoc) Revolving Blades: damage reduced by 35%.
• (Havoc) Thirsting Blades: damage increased by 70%.
• (Vengeance) Revel in Pain: absorption increased by 20%.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Balance, Guardian, Restoration) Craggy Bark: absorption increased by 15%.
• (Balance) Dawning Sun: damage increased by 40%.
• (Balance) Streaking Stars: damage reduced by 40%.
• (Balance) Sunblaze: damage increased by 35% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Feral) Iron Jaws: damage increased by 66% (unchanged in PvP). The benefit of having multiple copies of this trait active is reduced.
• (Guardian) Gory Regeneration: healing increase increased by 15%.
• (Guardian, Feral) Masterful Instincts: bonuses increased by 10%.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Beast Mastery, Marksmanship) Rapid Reload: damage increased by 25% and tooltip corrected to say "more than 2 targets."
• (Beast Mastery) Pack Alpha: damage increased by 60% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Beast Mastery) Dance of Death: Agility increased by 20%.
• (Marksmanship) Unerring Vision: Critical Strike increased by 100%.
• (Marksmanship) Focused Fire: damage increased by 30%.
• (Survival) Blur of Talons: Agility increased by 65%.
• (Survival) Up Close and Personal: Damage increased by 40%.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Arcane) Galvanizing Spark: damage reduced by 30% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Arcane) Explosive Echo: damage reduced by 35%.
• (Frost) Frigid Grasp: Intellect increased by 100%.
• (Frost) Packed Ice: Damage increased by 120% (+45% if used with Splitting Ice). Reduced by 50% against players.
• (Frost) Glacial Assault: Chance to activate increased to 20%.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Mistweaver) Burst of Life: healing increased by 20%.
• (Windwalker) Open Palm Strikes: damage increased by 60% (unchanged in PvP).

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Protection) Dauntless Divinity: block increased by 20%.
• (Protection) Judicious Defense: absorption increased by 10%.
• (Retribution) Divine Right: Strength increased by 40%, duration increased to 15 sec.
• (Retribution) Expurgation: damage increased by 15%.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Discipline, Shadow) Depth of the Shadows: healing increased by 20%.
• (Holy) Blessed Sanctuary: bonus increased by 10%.
• (Holy) Permeating Glow: bonus increased by 15%.
• (Shadow) Spiteful Apparitions: damage bonus increased by 75% when the Auspicious Spirits talent is not selected.
• (Shadow) Searing Dialogue: damage increased by 150%.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Assassination, Subtlety) Sharpened Blades: damage reduced by 30% (unchanged in PvP). The benefit of having multiple copies of this trait active is reduced.
• (Assassination) Poisoned Wire: Critical Strike increased by 50%.
• (Outlaw) Brigand's Blitz: Haste increased by 50%.
• (Subtlety) Blade in the Shadows: damage reduced by 25%.
• (Subtlety) The First Dance: Now grants 2 stacks of the Critical Strike bonus when activated. Critical Strike bonus reduced by 25%.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Enhancement) Strength of Earth: damage increased by 60%.
• (Enhancement) Roiling Storm: damage increased by 100% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Restoration) Soothing Waters: healing increased by 10%

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Affliction) Dreadful Calling: damage increased by 30%.
• (Demonology) Forbidden Knowledge: damage increased by 35% (unchanged in PvP). The benefit of having multiple copies of this trait active is reduced.
• (Demonology) Umbral Blaze: damage increased by 20%.
• (Demonology) Explosive Potential: duration increased to 15 sec.
• (Destruction) Accelerant: duration increased to 12 sec.
• (Destruction) Crashing Chaos: damage reduced by 30% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Destruction) Rolling Havoc: duration increased to 15 sec.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• (Arms)Executioner's Precision: damage increased by 75% (unchanged in PvP).
• (Arms) Test of Might: Strength reduced by 15%.
• (Fury) Reckless Flurry: damage reduced by 25%.
• (Fury) Bloodcraze: Critical Strike increased by 100%.
• (Protection) Reinforced Plating: Strength increased by 10%.

Alongside these changes, we plan to increase the damage output of a few affected specs:

• Arcane Mage: all damage increased by 3%.
• Balance Druid: Starsurge and Starfall damage increased by 15%.
• Destruction Warlock: Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Immolate damage increased by 10%.
• Fury Warrior: all damage increased by 6%.

You'll see the final adjustments in our hotfixes update post on Tuesday.

In addition to the tank and healer trait tuning originally posted in this thread, we're planning to adjust several DPS-focused traits, as well as make a few broader tuning changes to a couple of specs. I've updated the original post with the full details.

Sorry for the delay in responding to this; I wanted to make sure I had all my info 100% correct before I said anything, rather than risk giving you incorrect or incomplete info.

So first off: the threat bonus from using taunts is not being removed. That's a tooltip change that was made entirely for consistency; every taunt increases threat generation while it's active, but it was only mentioned in the tooltip for a few of them for some reason. So that's just basic housekeeping.

However, separate from the tooltip change, we are going to experiment a little with reducing how big the threat bonus is on the 8.1 PTR. Currently, it's pretty massive, which is a holdover from when it was first added in Mists of Pandaria. Remember, back then active tanks were dealing huge amounts of damage (and thus, threat) due to the Vengeance mechanic, and so the offtank needed a huge threat boost to be able to keep aggro through tank swaps. That mechanic hasn't existed for a few expansions now.

Nowadays, in BFA, threat is once again something tanks need to keep in mind, and that massive bonus opens us up to all sorts of wacky issues as DPS (both from tanks and from damage dealers) increases. As one example, there's a risk that we end up in a situation where certain tanks need to use their taunt on cooldown as part of their single target rotation. That would be bad for several fairly obvious reasons.

So, we're going to try it with a lower bonus on the PTR and see what happens. Our expectation is that there is no tangible effect on your gameplay; you still use taunts exactly how you do now, and they have the same result.

I'm a little confused- you expect threat issues bad enough with DPS scaling over time that you worry tanks might feel like they need to weave Taunt into their rotations because it gives them extra threat, so you're reducing the bonus, taking away an option to deal with that apparent inevitability? Are you adding something else? What gameplay do you see arising instead?
If we get to that point (it's not clear if it'd ever actually happen), we wouldn't want "use Taunt on cooldown" to be the way to deal with it anyway. We'd rather just make sure you're generating enough threat.

PvP Enchants Not Account WIde
Hey there, as I’m sure some of you guys already know the new pvp enchant at 2100 is not accountwide, which seems weird seeing as every previous pvp enchant was made accountwide, I opened a ticket about it once I found this out myself to see if maybe it was a bug and the gm that replied said as of now it’s working as implemented
This enchant is intended to not be account wide. Our philosophy here is that if you see a player with this enchant, you know they earned it on that character. We realize the enchant may of been account wide once upon a time and that other similar systems may be account wide but that is not our stance with this particular reward. Sorry for the confusion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Cap'n Crackers Update
Here to give the best update ever.

Cap'n Crackers now sits on your shoulder when you target him and use /whistle.

Also Crackers does the same as well.

Wait... we're not done. Petey sits on the opposite shoulder too. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Anchor Weed Supply
Yeah though. Considering time invested people are not asking unreasonable prices for these pots. Something is very wrong with the supply of herbs to the market.
Right now its the lack of Anchor Weed driving it all up.

We've got a current hotfix in the works that should address some of the right now problems by increasing the amount of Anchor Weed per gather for ranks 2 and 3.

In case anyone hasn't seen the datamining for 8.1, we're also looking at tweaking the recipe costs a little to bring the material cost of recipes requiring Anchor Weed down as well. This of course isn't final and could change, but just wanted to let you guys know that we're looking into these kinds of things. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Credit to u/Narabug on Reddit.

TL;DR: Damage-based Azerite Traits will deal more damage at higher Azerite Armor/Trait levels, and lowering your overall gear level will make them deal even more damage. For some classes, this may allow you to drop your gear level in order to do extremely high burst Azerite Trait damage.

Azerite Traits appear to not scale the same as ability damage. Traits that are specifically damage oriented will *always* do more damage with a higher item level, and the difference appears to be roughly the same as the listed difference, even with scaling. For example, if a 340 trait does 600 damage and a 385 trait does 1000 damage, then you may hit your opponent for 1200/2000 respectively with those items equipped.

We continued to test by dropping item level to see if trait damage was just immune to item level scaling, but it was not. As your item level decreases, the damage your opponents take from traits increases.
There are indeed some issues that you guys have pointed out, which are in the process of being hotfixed. These have to do with Azerite gear slots (and gems) not being weighted in the system as much as they should, and bugs with lower level trinkets being usable at max level. As much fun as it is to relive Taunka Time, we will be working on getting these fixed up.

I've raised the cap on this thread so any further specific examples you guys have that haven't already mentioned would be great, as getting this resolved is a high priority at the moment. Thanks for all the examples so far.

Arcane Torrent is effectively a Mass Dispell/AoE Purge, as well as a free HP generation. I think it's pretty fair that one is on the GCD as its still very powerful.

Shadowmeld doesn't have near that much of an impact if you're comparing what the abilities actually do. I don't think the mentality should be "All Racials should be on or off GCD" but rather what they do individually that dictates that.

Of course the feedback is welcome but specific examples of why X or Y ability should be on or off is great as always.

You don't think a VANISH that lets you escape from death every 2 minutes doesn't have as much impact?
When you're comparing the two abilities to each other, no. I think Arcane Torrent is far more powerful in both a PvE and PvP standpoint.

The ability for classes like Paladins to purge a buff, and generate a HP, in a singular global is very strong. Imagine that off the GCD and it becomes even stronger.

Game worked fine for 11 years with a much better Arcane Torrent off the GCD isn't specific enough?
I think you need to look in the context of what Arcane Torrent did originally. Since it was a Silence/Interrupt, it would be a little strange on the GCD as interrupts shouldn't be on the GCD. That's at is core is what the ability was made to used for, to silence. So it should be off.

Now with the rework since its more in line with a Purge, it should be on the GCD. I'm not the biggest fan of some of the GCD changes personally but I think the new Arcane Torrent is an example of something that definitely should be on the GCD.

What HP generation? It generates a minuscule amount of resources that isn't even worth the 1.5s GCD it incurs. Unless there is something to dispel, it is worthess.
If you play Ret for example, it generates a Holy Power, which is a class resource for Ret. So if all your abilities are on CD waiting for the next ability, you can toss in Arcane Torrent if there is nothing to purge. Which equates to a free Holy Power every time it's up. This can save your Relentless Inquisitor, Inquisition, or Righteous Verdict, so that you can keep those buffs rolling. That's a lot of power for a racial ability.

There's a reason why its in the Ret opener, and mentioned in the overall rotation, for most if not all guides if you're a Blood Elf. It's small when compared to your regular class abilities but that's a pretty big for a racial.

Feel free to change it back whenever
I do find myself missing the AoE silence, but I actually prefer the newer version myself. I think it's a bit more of a niche being a purge and I think abilities like that can be pretty fun.