Dragonflight Embers of Neltharion PTR Development Notes - March 14

Dragonflight Embers of Neltharion PTR Development Notes - March 14
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Here are this week’s PTR notes for Embers of Neltharion:

New Zone: Zaralek Cavern

  • The Embers of Neltharion campaign is now available for testing.

New Raid: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible

Millennia ago, Neltharion carved deep places in the earth where he conducted world altering experiments. After his death, these sites were lost to time, until now. Forces seeking to claim the Earth-Warder’s legacy raid his dominion in search for powerful artifacts. Now the champions of Azeroth must venture into darkness and ensure the crucible’s dangerous power doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible features nine boss encounters: Kazzara, the Hellforged, The Amalgamation Chamber, The Forgotten Experiments, Assault of the Zaqali, Rashok, the Elder, The Vigilant Steward, Zskarn, Magmorax, Echo of Neltharion, and Scalecommander Sarkareth.


Crucible Class Armor Sets

  • Death Knight, Havoc Demon Hunter, Druid, Mage, Brewmaster Monk, Holy Paladin, and Protection Paladin class armor sets are available for testing. Visit Setzertauren in Stormwind and Orgrimmar to pick up the sets.
  • Class armor set details can be found in this feedback thread. Please share bugs you find via the in-game bug reporting tool and your feedback about the bonuses in the feedback thread.

Dragonflight Season 2

  • Mythic+
    • The remaining Dragonflight dungeons will enter the fray:
      • Brackenhide Hollow
      • Halls of Infusion
      • Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
      • Neltharus
    • Four dungeons from past expansions will provide new challenges to keep the Mythic+ rotation fresh:
      • Freehold, Battle for Azeroth
      • The Underrot, Battle for Azeroth
      • Neltharion’s Lair, Legion
      • Vortex Pinnacle, Cataclysm
        • Vortex Pinnacle will be available for testing in a future PTR build.
    • Seasonal affixes are in development and will be available for testing in a future PTR build.
    • Dragonflight Season 2 Mythic+ testing begins on Thursday, March 16. Visit the feedback thread for details.

Classes

  • Druid
    • Balance
      • The second Moonfire cast by Twin Moons no longer generates Astral Power.
        • Developers’ note: With the increase in Moonfire Astral Power generation from 2 to 6 in Embers of Neltharion, this doubling of AP from Twin Moons is stronger than we intend. This change makes it consistent with Astral Power generated by Sunfire.
    • Feral
      • Fixed an issue where Sudden Ambush was not affecting Shred and Rake attacks during Berserk.
      • Fixed an issue where Raging Fury was not extending the duration of Tiger’s Fury.
      • Updated descriptions of Pouncing Strikes and Bloodtalons to specify they increase the damage of your attacks for their full duration.
        • Developers’ note: This copies the language from Tiger’s Fury and distinguishes effects which snapshot their benefits at the time a damage over time spell is cast (Tiger’s Fury, Bloodtalons, Rake from Stealth) from those that only increase spell damage as long as they’re active (Sabertooth, new Berserk).
  • Paladin
    • Holy
      • Avenging Crusader has been redesigned – You become the ultimate crusader of light for 12 seconds. Crusader Strike and Judgment cool down 30% faster and heal up to 5 injured allies for 750% of the damage done, split evenly among them. If Avenging Wrath is talented, also increases Judgment, Crusader Strike, and auto-attack damage by 30%.
  • Priest
    • Shadow Word: Death now has a 10 second cooldown (was 20 seconds).

    • Discipline
      • Enduring Luminescence now also reduces the cast time of Power Word: Radiance by 30%.
      • Power Word: Radiance now has a spell school of Radiant (was Holy).
    • Shadow
      • Shadow Crash damage reduced by 70%.
      • Shadow Crash now has a 20 second cooldown (was 30 seconds).
      • Death and Madness Insanity generation reduced to 8 (was 30).
      • Death and Madness generates Insanity immediately instead of over 3 seconds.
      • Shadow Word: Death now generates 4 Insanity.
      • Deathspeaker trigger rate increased by 50%.
      • Deathspeaker now increases the damage of Shadow Word: Death by 25% while active.
      • Deathspeaker now temporarily increases the maximum charges of Shadow Word: Death by 1.
      • Deathspeaker no longer triggers Death and Madness’ cooldown.
      • New Talent: Distorted Reality – Increases the damage of Devouring Plague by 20%, but Devouring Plague deals its damage over 12 seconds and its Insanity cost is increased by 25.
      • Encroaching Shadows has been removed.
      • Devouring Plague instant damage increased by 75%.
      • Surge of Insanity has moved to Encroaching Shadows’ position.
      • Surge of Insanity now has a Spell Alert while active.
      • Mental Decay now updates the maximum duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch so that the remaining durations are more easily understood.
  • Shaman
    • Elemental
      • Flame Shock’s dispel protection from Control of Lava (PvP Talent) is now a baseline part of Flame Shock.
    • Enhancement
      • Flame Shock’s dispel protection from Control of Lava (PvP Talent) is now a baseline part of Flame Shock.

Player Versus Player

  • Classes
    • Hunter
      • Interlope (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Misdirection now causes your pet to redirect the next 3 hostile spells cast on your target. Misdirection cooldown increased by 15 seconds. Your pet must be within 20 yards of the target for spells to be redirected.
        • Developers’ note: We’re still working on this talent, so there may be a few bugs with this ability in this week’s PTR.
    • Mage
      • Frost
        • Frost Bomb (PvP Talent) explosion damage increased by 50%. Dispelling Frost Bomb before its explosion now grants a charge of Brain Freeze.
    • Priest
      • New PvP Talent: Phase Shift – Step into the shadows when you cast Fade, avoiding all attacks and spells for 0.5 seconds. Interrupt effects are not affected by Phase Shift.
      • Phase Shift has been added to the Personal Resource Display.
      • New PvP Talent: Absolute Faith – Leap of Faith also pulls the spirit of the 3 furthest allies within 40 yards and distributes health between you and the affected allies.
      • Eternal Rest (PvP Talent) has been removed.
      • Delivered from Evil (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Shaman
      • Elemental
        • Stormkeeper increases Lightning Bolt damage by 30% for Elemental in PvP combat (was 115%).
        • Casting Lightning Bolt with Surge of Power causes 1 additional Elemental Overload in PvP combat (was 2).
        • Lightning Bolt damage increased by 53% for Elemental in PvP combat.
        • Control of Lava (PvP Talent) has been removed.
        • New Talent: Volcanic Surge – Increases the damage of Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst by 20%. Lava Surge instead reduces the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst by 25%, stacking up to 2 times.
      • Enhancement
        • Thundercharge (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • Warlock
      • Bane of Fragility (PvP Talent) has been removed.
      • Destruction
        • Cremation (PvP Talent) has been removed.
      • Demonology
        • Call Fel Hunter (PvP Talent) has been removed.
        • Pleasure through Pain (PvP Talent) has been removed.

Quests

  • Several new side questlines are now available:
    • “A Swallow’s Tale” from Effervesta in Loamm (requires completing “Six Hundred Feet Under” campaign quest)
    • “Slime Time Live” from Elder Honeypelt in Loamm (requires completing “Future Aspects” campaign quest)
    • “Mouse Detective” from Yarren in Hermit’s Hollow
    • “This Might Sting” for Dracthyr in Zaralek Cavern.

User Interface and Accessibility

  • A ping animation has been added to the map when opened from the quest tracker, making it easier to spot the quest location.
  • Fixed an issue where Hunter nameplate can disappear after using Feign Death.
  • Fixed an issue where personal resource display and health bars can become detached or disappear.
  • Edit Mode
    • Pet Frame can now be moved separately from Player Frame.
    • The Edit Mode menu has been reorganized, with several options now hidden under Advanced Options.
    • The visibility toggle of the Buff and Debuff frames have been combined into one checkbox, but their functionality remains the same.
    • Encounter Bar will stay visible if it’s already shown when entering Edit Mode.
  • Options
    • The Graphics Quality section has been reorganized into tabs.
    • The Auto Self Cast and Self Cast Key settings have been combined into a single dropdown.
    • Each Action Bar now has its own keybind section that appears if that Action Bar is enabled (they were previously grouped together under one section).
    • Mousing over a keybind row will now highlight the corresponding action bar button, and vice versa.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Dragonflight Embers of Neltharion PTR Development Notes - March 14 started by Lumy View original post
Published on 2023-03-14 11:00 PM
4 Comments
Comments 4 Comments
  1. bluesock's Avatar
    I'm so glad Blizzard is listening to the unanimous feedback of how terrible the shadow priest changes are and have responded adequately by reverting most of them.... oh wait.
  1. Claraa12's Avatar
    Hii Friends I'm Claraa.
  1. bloodmoth13's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bluesock View Post
    I'm so glad Blizzard is listening to the unanimous feedback of how terrible the shadow priest changes are and have responded adequately by reverting most of them.... oh wait.
    A lot of the players have different opinions on this so its definitely NOT unanimous, funnily enough most players were very vocal about how much they hated mind sear before DF launched and there were numerous posts about making a 'searless' build.
    The playerbase simply cant collectively make its mind up. I suspect also that most players that like shadow currently mostly only like it because its generously tuned atm getting the most overall damage in raids.
    Outside of that shadows aoe is clunky and does need a redesign. The overreliance on shadow crash was one big issue and imo having shadow crash in the single target rotation didnt feel good, but im not fond of this direction where they nerf the crap out of it and reduce its CD. It just means we wont take it in single target fights and if there is any aoe phase we simply dont function which leaves the spec in a broken state.
    If you do take it this still doesnt stop players from using it single target either since it deals upfront damage, is instant cast and applies VT and SW:P, so its still better to use this in single target to apply VT than VT...

    Shadow needs functional aoe baseline and this aint it, this is a downgrade from what we currently have mechanically because it simply wont work. IMO they need to make shadow crash our spender and put it in the tree where its mandatory, that way we will always have functional aoe, they can add aoe buffs elsewhere that are optional but shadow crash should be baseline in our kit especially if they are pushing psychic link as our main aoe source.

    I have written up my own design for ideal aoe toolkit elsewhere so i wont go deeper but i suspect blizzard will either come to the same conclusion as me, release some ugly bastard of a rework or cave and shove more power into shadow crash further driving our actual dot spells into redundancy.
  1. Reive's Avatar
    They were unhappy with mind sear because shadow was dog tier in m+. Recently they got buffed and actually became op. That's why now people are mad.

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