World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

After four years away, BlizzCon® is returning to Anaheim, California on November 3-4! We’re so excited to get everyone together again, celebrate our communities, and share what we’ve been working on.

This year, the goal is to make BlizzCon® feel more experiential than ever before. It will be a one-of-a-kind immersive experience, bringing attendees into the universes of Warcraft®, Diablo®, and Overwatch® with massive installations, art, and thematic spaces where friends can connect. Whether you’re kicking back in Azeroth, exploring the mysteries of a dark cathedral of Sanctuary, playing alongside the heroes of Overwatch®, or tuning in from home, we want you to feel you are entering universes alongside your friends as you celebrate and experience what we’re building next, and hear from developers all across Blizzard about their vision for our games, their craft, and more.

This is the first time we are building BlizzCon this way, and our vision is that building a giant playground for our communities will allow everyone to create memories, share stories, and celebrate what unites us.

Here’s what you need to know!

Tickets
Tickets will be sold in two waves through AXS: if you don’t have an AXS account already, we recommend making one in advance. The first wave will go on sale Saturday, July 8 at 10 a.m. PDT. The second wave will go on sale Saturday, July 22 at 10 a.m. PDT. Please note that you can purchase a maximum of two tickets per transaction. You’ll find more information about BlizzCon tickets at BlizzCon.com. Some content at BlizzCon is rated for Mature audiences and is not suitable for children: children under 7 will not be permitted to enter, and anyone under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult.


If you can’t make it to the show in person, BlizzCon 2023 will be live streamed free of charge. The Virtual Ticket will be back as an optional purchase, featuring in-game goodies, early access to exclusive BlizzCon merch, and more. Details to come.

If you are a member of the press or content creator residing in North America looking to attend the event, please keep an eye out for our press portal, which will open at a later date. International media and content creators can reach out to their regional Blizzard PR contact.

BlizzCon Arena: the Opening Ceremony seating random-draw system, panels, and Community Night
While the Opening Ceremony will be available to watch on screens in every hall, the ceremony itself will take place in its entirety in the BlizzCon Arena. Due to limited seating, a random-draw system will be used to distribute tickets in advance for a seat to view the Opening Ceremony in the arena - all ticket holders are opted in as default, additional details to come.

All panels, as well as Community Night, will also take place in the BlizzCon Arena, and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Just like the Opening Ceremony, all panels and Community Night will be simulcast around BlizzCon, as well as live streamed for free to our virtual attendees.

We’re bringing all on-stage stage activities to the BlizzCon Arena as we strive to bring a one-of-a-kind immersive experience throughout the venue. This gives us an opportunity to enhance the experiential aspect of the show for in-person attendees, and allows us to bring a comprehensive virtual experience for those to choose to tune in from home.

Community Contest Categories and Prizing
While we prepare the full ruleset of each competition, here are the basics you need to know if you want to get started on your cosplay, art, or short film now:

Cosplay	Description
Master Crafter	Mastery of one or more traditional or cutting-edge crafting techniques, such as sewing, embroidery, blacksmithing, woodworking, leatherworking, working with foam, 3D printing, and more.
Colossal Creation	Demonstrates excellence in using large-scale fabrication to create a legendary, larger-than-life character. Costumes must be able to fit within a 39”x39” area, be safely maneuverable up and down a 1:12 ratio, ADA-compliant ramp to reach stage level, and must be able to become shorter than 77” to maneuver through a standard doorway.
Epic FX	Demonstrates excellence in incorporating special effects such as lighting, complex mechanical or robotic elements, and more.
Dynamic Duo	Awards an outstanding pair of contestants whose cosplay represents a legendary set of two Blizzard characters: ancient rivals, best friends, heroes and sidekicks, and other prime pairings.
Best In Show	Each category winner is entered into an overall, best-in-show prize.

For the Art Contest, we will be asking community artists to submit original artwork based around Blizzard’s universes – this can include sketches, paintings, sculptures, and more, physical or digital.

The Short Film Contest will ask entrants to create a previously unreleased digital short (3 minutes or under) that uses or finds its basis in characters, animations, scenes, or themes from Blizzard’s universes.

Full details about Community Night contests and the Cosplay Exhibition, including prizing, will be shared soon: keep an eye on Twitter for announcements.

BlizzCon 2023 Charity Auction
The BlizzCon Charity Auction is back for 2023, a virtual auction for members of the global community everywhere to bid on an array of unique Blizzard artwork and collectibles to benefit a charitable organization. This year’s charity auction will benefit Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization active in more than 80 countries. Their mission is to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies – without regard to politics, religion, or ability to pay. Learn more about Direct Relief here, and we’ll have more details to come!

Overwatch World Cup (OWWC)
The first Overwatch World Cup champion of the Overwatch 2 era will be crowned this year, and it’s all going down in front of a live audience against the iconic backdrop of BlizzCon! The Top 8 teams will battle it out in single-elimination bracket finals live at BlizzCon. For more information about the OWWC, head to the Overwatch World Cup website.

Code of Conduct
We want everyone at BlizzCon to feel like they're part of one big Blizzard community. We ask that everyone at the show be respectful and courteous to their fellow attendees.

If you witness or experience any activity that puts someone's safety or enjoyment of the show at risk, inform a staff member, security guard, or police officer. We have escalation procedures in place to handle these kinds of situations, and we will take the appropriate action from there.

In order to ensure the event provides a safe, enjoyable, and welcoming environment for everyone, Blizzard reserves the right to remove from BlizzCon any person whose conduct is deemed to be disorderly, unbecoming, who uses vulgar or abusive language, or in any way deemed non-compliant with our rules and regulations.

Zero Tolerance Policy
Please note that BlizzCon show management has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind. Harassment will not be tolerated at BlizzCon, anyone found to have engaged in harassing or threatening behavior will face appropriate consequences as determined by BlizzCon show management including but not limited to having their ticket revoked and issued a permanent ban to the show. Onsite security and police may be notified in accordance with all California state laws and governing procedures.

If you feel any concerns about your safety prior to the show, please email us at bcsafety@blizzard.com.

Accessibility
We are committed to providing an outstanding experience for all attendees at BlizzCon. We strive for access to all activities—to the fullest extent possible—based on an awareness of attendees' needs and appropriate planning. This includes accommodations for aides/personal assistants, American Sign Language and/or open captioning of everything happening in the BlizzCon Arena, service animal accommodations, personal consideration rooms, and priority seating. We ask that all accessibility requests be made by September 1, 2023, so that we can best meet individual needs, by contacting us at bcaccessibility@blizzard.com. On-site requests will be accommodated to the best of our ability; however, available resources at that time may be limited. For additional information about available services, please visit BlizzCon.com.


See you there!

For more information, head over to the official BlizzCon site, and follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-date with further BlizzCon announcements.

In response to player feedback and internal data, we’ve developed the following class tuning changes to address several over- and under-performing classes.

These adjustments will be applied to the live game with scheduled weekly maintenance on Tuesday, July 25 in this region.

Classes

Death Knight

• Blood
  
  • All ability damage increased by 10%.

Druid

• Guardian
  
  • Ursoc’s Fury absorb shield reduced to 50% of damage dealt by Thrash and Maul (was 60%).

Evoker

• Augmentation
• Developers’ notes: Augmentation is overperforming in dungeons and is doing less direct damage than intended relative to the power of their buffing effects. These adjustments will increase their personal damage in all situations and moderately reduce the effectiveness of their buffs in dungeon content.
  
  • Close as Clutchmates now causes Ebon Might and Breath of Eons to be 20% more effective when not in a raid (was 40%).
  • Fixed a bug where Close as Clutchmates would not increase the Evoker’s damage done via Ebon Might for periodic effects such as Fire Breath.
  • Ebon Might now increases the Evoker’s damage done by 20% (was 10%).
  • Eruption damage increased by 40%.
  • Fate Mirror’s chance to occur reduced to 15% (was 20%).
  • Aspects’ Favor amplifies Black Attunement to 7%/10% maximum health (was 10%/16%).

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  
  • Barbed Shot damage increased by 15%.
  • Cobra Shot damage increased by 15%.
  • Kill Shot damage increased by 15%.
• Marksmanship
  
  • Trick Shot, Aimed Shot, and Rapid Fire ricochets now deal 65% of their normal damage (was 55%).
• Survival
  
  • Mongoose Bite damage increased by 5%.
  • Raptor Strike damage increased by 5%.
  • Flanking Strike damage increased by 10%.
  • Kill Command damage increased by 10%.

Monk

• Brewmaster
  
  • Damage of Spinning Crane Kick reduced by 20%.
  • Damage of Keg Smash reduced by 5%.
• Windwalker
  
  • Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 10%.
  • Fists of Fury damage increased by 10%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Blackout Kick damage increased by 10%.
  • Tiger Palm damage increased by 15%.

Paladin

• Protection
  
  • All ability damage increased by 8%.

Priest

• Discipline
  
  • Luminous Barrier absorption increased by 30%.
• Shadow
  
  • Psychic Link now causes direct damage spells to inflict 15% of their damage on all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards (was 25%).
  • Void Spike damage to enemies within 10 yards of the target reduced by 30%.
  • Devouring Plague damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Mind Blast damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Void Bolt damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Mind Flay damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Mind Flay: Insanity damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Mind Spike damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Mind Spike: Insanity damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Shadow Word: Death damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP Combat.
  • Prayer of Mending now costs 10% of base mana (was 4%).
  • Power Word: Life now costs 10% of base mana (was 4%).
  • Renew now costs 8% of base mana (was 4%).

Shaman

• Restoration
  
  • All healing increased by 5%.
  • The range of Restorative Mists heals from Ascendance is now 40 yards (was 20 yards). The initial burst healing from Ascendance remains at 20 yards.

Warrior

• Protection
  
  • All ability damage increased by 7%.

Player versus Player
There are a few additional PvP-specific changes that we have planned for next week’s reset, but we’re still discussing specifics. We plan to update this thread on Monday with further details.

Druid

• Balance
  
  • New Moon, Half Moon, Full Moon no longer deal increased damage in PvP (was 20%).
  • Owlkin Adept (PvP Talent) now reduces cast time by 10% (was 15%).
  • High Winds (PvP Talent) now reduces the targets healing and damage by 15% for 3 seconds (was 30% for 6 seconds).
  • Umbral Embrace now increases damage of Wrath or Starfire by 15% in PvP (was 20%).

Evoker

• Augmentation
  
  • Ebon Might’s increase to the Evoker’s damage is no longer 40% more effective in PvP Combat.
  • Eruption damage is now increased by 25% in PvP Combat (was 50%).
  • Upheaval damage is now increased by 25% in PvP Combat (was 15%)
  • The damage bonus from Tectonic Locus is now reduced by 70% in PvP Combat.
  • All healing done is now reduced by 10% in PvP Combat.
  • Dream Projection healing is now reduced by 25% in PvP Combat.
  • The absorption effect from Molten Blood is now reduced by 30% in PvP Combat.
  • Born in Flame now lasts 3 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  • Burnout from Born in Flame is no longer dispellable.

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
• Developers’ notes: We’re increasing Barbed Shot’s bleed damage, as we’d like to decrease the damage differential between attacking high armor and low armor targets for Beast Mastery Hunters.
  
  • Barbed Shot damage is no longer decreased in PvP Combat (was reduced by 10%).

Mage

• Master Shepherd increases Versatility by 12% (was 6%).
• Arcane
• Developers’ notes: The high-end burst damage of Arcane Mage was reduced with the release of Fractures in Time, so we’re increasing the damage of Arcanosphere, as we’d like it to be a more threatening piece of Arcane’s toolkit. We’re also increasing the baseline damage of a few rotational spells, as Arcane’s overall damage has been lower than we would like, and Nether Tempest has not felt like a competitive spell in PvP.
  
  • Arcanosphere damage increased by 25%.
  • Arcane Missiles damage increased by 12% in PvP Combat (was 5%).
  • Arcane Orb damage increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
  • Nether Tempest damage increased by 150% in PvP Combat.
• Fire
• Developers’ notes: We’re offsetting a few recent damage reduction adjustments and greatly increasing the damage of Living Bomb, with the goal of making it a viable talent option in PvP.
  
  • Pyroblast damage increased by 18% in PvP Combat (was 12%).
  • Fire Blast damage reduced by 3% in PvP Combat (was 8%).
  • Phoenix Flames damage increased by 22% in PvP Combat (was 16%).
  • Living Bomb damage increased by 300% in PvP Combat.
• Frost
• Developers’ notes: We would like Ray of Frost to remain a threatening cast, but still feel it’s slightly more lethal than we’d like. Frostbolt’s damage has fallen behind other options, so we’re increasing its damage to reward casting. Snowdrift’s activation has felt a little too difficult for the amount of risk involved, so we’re reducing the time to trigger the stun effect.
  
  • Cryopathy is now 50% effective in PvP Combat (was 60%).
  • Frostbolt damage increased by 150% in PvP Combat (was 100%).
  • Snowdrift now has a 2 second activation time (was 3 seconds).

Priest

• Angel’s Mercy’s cooldown reduction is now 25% effective in PvP Combat.
• Shadow
  
  • Mind Trauma now steals 2% haste (was 4%) and stacks up to 9 times (was 6).
  • From Darkness Comes Light now stacks up to 25 times in PvP Combat (was 50).

Monk

• Windwalker
• Developers’ notes: Windwalker Monk’s damage profile is more bursty than we would like, so we are moving more of its damage into base rotational spells.
  
  • Rising Star critical strike damage bonus is now 50% effective in PvP Combat.
  • Serenity now increases damage and healing by 10% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
  • Whirling Dragon Punch damage is now increased by 120% in PvP Combat (was 80%).

Shaman

• Elemental
• Developers’ notes: We feel the backlash damage from Flame Shock has not been sufficiently high as to make the decision to dispel it compelling.
  
  • Control of Lava damage increased by 40%.
• Enhancement
• Developers’ notes: We feel the backlash damage from Flame Shock has not been sufficiently high as to make the decision to dispel it compelling.
  
  • Control of Lava damage increased by 40%.
• Restoration
  
  • Now regenerates 700 mana per second at max level in PvP Combat (was 800).

Warrior

• Slam damage is now increased by 85% in PvP Combat (was 48%).
• Arms
• Developers’ notes: We’re increasing the damage of Bladestorm baseline and removing some power from the Unhinged talent, as its damage could be unpredictable for both the Warrior and their enemies. We’re also increasing the damage of Overpower to increase Arm Warrior’s consistent pressure.
  
  • Overpower damage is now increased by 30% in PvP Combat (was 20%).
  • Bladestorm damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat.
  • Mortal Strike damage increased by 10% in PvP Combat.
  • Mortal Strikes from the Unhinged talent are now cast at 60% effectiveness.
• Fury
• Developers’ notes: We’re increasing the damage of a few Fury Warrior spells we feel are not impactful enough in PvP.
  
  • Execute damage is now increased by 25% in PvP Combat (was 10%).
  • Onslaught damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
  • Ravager damage increased by 30% in PvP Combat.

Classes

• Paladin
  
  • Protection
    
    • Fixed an issue with Tirion's Devotion causing free Word of Glory casts to grant excessive cooldown reduction.
      

Customizations

• Fixed a bug that could prevent players from being able to change the customization state of their Renewed Proto Drake.

Events

• Iskaara Community Feast
  
  • Vendors Hanu and Tikukk should now display their vendor windows to players on associated tasks, even if the players have bought all renown items from them.
    
  • Patchu should no longer hide his gossip option to purchase feast items from players that are in the middle of certain pet training questlines.
    
• Time Rifts
  
  • Resolved some visual errors with the Time Rifts skybox.
    

Items

• Secrets of Naxxramas
  
  • Scourgestone acquisition can no longer be toggled off. Players who are in this state will resume receiving Scourgestones.
    
  • Developers’ notes: This toggle was added to help alleviate inventory space by players who did not want to engage with the system. However, it was extremely easy to toggle this off without realizing it. We may reintroduce it at a later time.
    

Professions

• Alchemy
  
  • Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage’s Overwhelming Rage damage will no longer pierce through immunities.
    

World

• Fixed a bug that caused phasing issues in Dazar’alor.

Wrath of the Lich King Classic

• Fixed an issue where certain spells were not removing the effects of Piercing Shots, Ignite, or Deep Wounds from a target.