World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

The fine folks of Smokywood Pastures aren’t letting a little thing like a shattered sky and ominous portents get in the way of spreading holiday cheer—or gaining a bit of profit. Winter Veil has begun in Azeroth, and with it come all the fripperies, fineries, and delectable comestibles of the holiday.

When: December 16 – January 2
Where: Initial holiday quests can be found in Orgrimmar and Ironforge, but festive decorations can be found throughout the world.


Take a magical sleigh ride with your friends over Orgrimmar or Ironforge! Don’t forget to take a S.E.L.F.I.E. to preserve the moment!


Stop by the Smokeywoods Pastures cart in Ironforge or Orgrimmar and click on Greatfeather Pepe to obtain A Tiny Winter Hat. When you summon Pepe to join you on your adventures, he may just show up in the perfect Winter Veil outfit complete with a tiny beard.

Festive Favorites

Let your spirit be light by stepping into one of the Giant Snow Globes found outside of the Ironforge Bank, in Orgrimmar overlooking the Valley of Wisdom, or in the Broken Isles in Dalaran. It’s a truly transformative experience letting your inner Greatfather Winter helper out. A little /dance will spread the joy to those around you.^*

The Abominable Greench is (still) a mean one, but we’re sure that once you’ve filled up on the fine foods and beverages from Smokywood Pastures, you’re bound to put a stop to his reign of terror in the Hillsbrad Foothills. The quest You’re a Mean One… is now available to players level 60 and up.

There are plenty of holiday hats to be found on a variety of bosses from dungeons in the Broken Isles, Northrend, and more. You just need to decide which color hat you want. Will it be green or red?

Make sure to check in on December 25 to see what presents Greatfather Winter has left for you.

Feast of Winter Veil in WoW Classic

When: December 15 - January 2
Where: Initial holiday quests can be found in Orgrimmar and Ironforge, but festive decorations can be found throughout the world.

*Please /dance responsibly. Side effects include joy and laughter. Wait at least 30 minutes after eating Smokywood Pastures fine festive foods to avoid unpleasant side effects.

Hey all! Here are today’s hotfixes.

Classes

Classes

• Druid
  
  • Balance
    
    • Orbital Strike’s targeting reticle will now match the radius of the damage spell.
    • Orbital Strike will now damage targets that are on top of or behind the Druid.
    • Umbral Embrace will now appear on the Personal Resource Display.
• Hunter
  
  • Survival
    
    • Fixed an issue with Ruthless Marauder incorrectly affecting the damage of Fury of the Eagle.
    • Fury of the Eagle damage increased by 115%, which should keep the damage of Fury of the Eagle roughly the same as it was when talented into 3/3 Ruthless Marauder.
• Paladin
  
  • Retribution
    
    • Fixed an issue that prevented Divine Purpose from being gained from Radiant Decree casts.
• Priest
  
  • Fixed an issue causing Inner Light from Inner Light and Shadow to not reduce the mana cost of several spells.
• Rogue
  
  • Assassination
    
    • Fixed an issue that prevented Exsanguinate cooldown from resetting after encounters.

Dungeons and Raids

• Algeth’ar Academy
  
  • Echo of Doragosa
    
    • Adjusted the number of Overwhelming Power applications required to create an Arcane Rift to 3 (was 4).
      
      • Developers’ note: This ability is taking longer than expected to come into play during the encounter, making the encounter less engaging than desired.
• Halls of Infusion
  
  • Proto-Dragons now have more consistent movement when positioning themselves around a player.
• Vault of the Incarnates
  
  • Fixed an issue where items with a profession skill requirement could be rolled on by anyone when using Group Loot.
  • Eranog
    
    • Fixed an issue causing Primal Flames to sometimes turn in unexpected ways during Stage Two.
  • Terros
    
    • Fixed an issue that could prevent Druid’s Convoke the Spirits from striking Terros at the appropriate range.
  • Dathea, Ascended
    
    • Fixed an issue causing Shaman Windfury Totem and Earthen Wall Totem to not apply correctly during the encounter.
    • Fixed an issue causing Warlock’s Demonic Gateway to incorrectly change its location during the encounter.
  • Broodkeeper Diurna
    
    • Added a personal notification when a player is targeted by Empowered Greatstaff’s Wrath.
    • Fixed an issue where Primalist Reinforcements’ spawn location indicator may be overlapped with another.

Items and Rewards

• Fixed an issue where Rumbling Ruby would not trigger from certain melee attacks.
• Fixed an issue where Desperate Invoker’s Codex did not have its current cooldown reduced when gaining stacks of Hatred. Now, if Desperate Invoker’s Codex is on cooldown, gaining a stack of Hatred will reduce it by one second.

Mythic+

• Fixed an issue with the Thundering affix that caused Primal Overload to trigger after a keystone dungeon has been completed.
• Fixed an issue where some players were unable to loot a Mythic+ Keystone.
• Fixed an issue where players’ saved Mythic Keystone level was not properly upgraded when running a Mythic+ dungeon that originated in a previous expansion.
• The Nokhud Offensive
  
  • Balakar Khan
    
    • Players pulled by Static Spear are no longer affected by Quaking.
• Shadowmoon Burial Grounds
  
  • Fixed an issue where a Shadowmoon Burial Grounds Mythic+ group could default to Challenge difficulty when listed in the Group Finder.
  • Shadowmoon Dominator’s Domination can now be interrupted by stun and knockback effects.

Player versus Player

• Classes
  
  • Rogue
    
    • Assassination
      
      • Fixed an issue that caused poisons to be removed when entering Arenas if talented into Dragon-Tempered Blades.
  • Warlock
    
    • The following spells are no longer usable while silenced: Call Fel Lord, Demonic Strength, Guillotine, Inquisitor’s Gaze, Shadowflame, Soulburn, Soul Strike, Soul Swap, and Soul Tap.
    • Summon Soulkeeper is no longer castable while moving and can now be interrupted.
    • Fel Domination and Soul Strike are now classified as Shadow magic.
    • Dimensional Rift and Summon Soulkeeper are now classified as Chaos magic.
    • Burning Rush and Summon Infernal are now classified as Fire magic.
    • Guillotine and Inquisitor’s Gaze are now classified as Shadowflame magic.
• Items
  
  • Victorious Contender’s Strongboxes are now awarded after every 4 wins in a given bracket.
  • Victorious Contender’s Strongboxes now correctly drop a scaling amount of Primal Chaos based on PvP rating from the match the box was earned from.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Primal Focus and Concentrated Primal Focus reagents from having a chance to drop for players at Rival II or higher if the match it was earned from was at an appropriate rating.
  • Significantly increased the drop rate of Infurious recipes.
• Solo Shuffle
  
  • Made some adjustments to Rated Solo Shuffle matchmaking to have more evenly matched games. We will continue to monitor these matches and look for ways to make further improvements as necessary.

Primal Storms

• Elite enemies that are spawned during Primal Storms will no longer despawn if their corresponding storm ends and they are in combat.
• The map marker for the Elemental Storm in the Cobalt Assembly has been moved to be more visible.

Professions

• Engineering
  
  • Fixed an issue that caused Primal Deconstruction Charge to cost 1 Awakened Fire instead of 1 Rousing Fire.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Grease Grenade from being craftable.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented EZ-Thro bombs from being discoverable when specialized into EZ-Thro.
  • Increased the chance of discovering new epic bracer recipes when crafting rare goggles and the P.E.W. x2 for specialized Engineers.
  • Significantly increased the chance of discovering Safety Components when a Tinker malfunctions for specialized Engineers.
  • Slightly lowered the chance to experience a catastrophic malfunction when using Tinkers.

Quests

• Valdrakken
  
  • Alexstrasza will now always be available in Valdrakken for players to turn in “Moving On.”
  • “To Valdrakken” will now point you to Alexstrasza’s location if she has left Valdrakken.
  • Added paragon reputation tracking to “Aiding the Accord” quests early. We didn’t anticipate the commitment some players have to digging holes for reputation.

Hi, Druids.

We’ve got a number of upcoming changes to the core and spec trees coming in 10.0.5. Our hope is that they fix some underlying issues with the trees while still giving you the same options and overall builds you’ve gotten used to.

Talent Dependencies

One of our goals for the talent tree was to make it impossible or unlikely to pick talents that would do nothing for a character. Druid breaks that guideline in a couple places – Feral can take talents that modify Berserk without taking Berserk, Guardian and Feral can skip Swipe, etc. Most players don’t do these, but we still want to tighten this up.

Druid Core Tree

In the core tree, we’ve moved Wild Growth and Sunfire up so they’re among the first points Resto and Balance druids take. Feral druids now start with Rake and Rip, instead of Rake and Thrash. All druids now learn Swipe at level 10, at half its current damage. The previous talent to learn Swipe is now Improved Swipe, restoring Swipe’s (and Brutal Slash’s) current damage.

We’ve rearranged other talents and added connectors and a couple new talents to give you some different options. Lastly, we changed Killer Instinct and Nurturing Instinct to grant 3/6% value for just 2 talent points.

Tuning Changes

• All Druids learn Swipe at level 10.
• Swipe and Brutal slash damage reduced by 50%.

Talents

• Killer Instinct changed to 2 points, granting 3/6% physical damage and armor.
• Nurturing Instinct changed to 2 points, granting 3/6% magical damage and healing.
• New talent: Improved Swipe increases Swipe and Brutal Slash damage by 100% (restoring 10.0.2 values).
• New talent, row 8: Forestwalk. 2 points. Casting Regrowth increases your movement speed and healing received by 5% for 3/6 seconds.
• New talent: Gale Winds. Increases Typhoon’s radius by 20% and range by 5 yards.
• New talent: Incessent Tempest: Reduces the cooldown of Typhoon by 5 seconds.
• Feline Swiftness icon changed.
• Matted Fur icon changed.
• New connections throughout the tree.
• Wild Growth moved up and Remove Curse moved to the side.
• Sunfire moved up and Starsurge moved to the side.
• Feral druids now start with Rip instead of Thrash.

Feral

To correct Feral’s dependency issues, we’ve moved the talents that modify Berserk into a triangle under the core Berserk talent. We’ve repositioned Tear Open Wounds, putting it behind Double-Clawed Rake because in mass AOE situations where you’ll want Tear Open Wounds you’ll generally also want Double-Clawed Rake.

Survival Instincts

While we want you to make choices in your talent tree, the option to skip your major survivability cooldown in exchange for more DPS isn’t really one of them. Feral and other specs that include major survivability cooldowns in their spec tree are generally tuned with the assumption you’re taking those talents. To reinforce the importance of Survival Instincts, we’re moving it above Berserk.

AOE Build Options

We like the power of Feral’s bleeds and are happy that there’s an AOE build that allows you to just cast Primal Wrath, but we don’t want it to be the only option, as it locks in a lot of choices. To make builds that don’t reapply DoTs so frequently more viable, we’re boosting the power of Ferocious Bite in single target and AoE and pulling back the power of Rip and Rake a bit, especially in AOE. This also somewhat increase Feral’s power to funnel damage into a priority target.

Lunar Inspiration

It’s been a challenge to find an appropriate place for Lunar Inspiration. It adds a button to the rotation and another DoT to track. Because of that increased complexity, we don’t want it to feel required for all players. However, the current reduced-power version also isn’t meeting the needs of players who do want to play it.

To address this, we’ve moved it to a choice node with Feral Frenzy at the bottom of the talent tree and restored its former power. This makes it possible to pick it up also with the talents that synergize well with it but gives players that don’t want to play it plenty of other powerful options in the same area of the tree.

Tuning Changes

• Circle of Life and Death damage over time duration compression reduced to 20% (was 25%).
• Taste for Blood bonus to Ferocious Bite damage increased to 4/8% per bleed on the target (was 2/4%).
• Rampant Ferocity damage increased to 35% of Ferocious Bite damage (was 25%).
• Dreadful Bleeding bonus to Rip damage reduced to 15% (was 20%).
• Infected Wounds bonus to Rake damage reduced to 25% (was 30%).
• Veinripper increase to bleed durations increased to 33% (was 25%).
• Lunar Inspiration damage increased 66%.

Talents

• Background pattern
• Description automatically generated
• Tear Open Wounds moved to row 4
• Survival Instincts moved to row 5.
• Infected Wounds moved to row 5.
• Berserk moved to row 6.
• Moment of Clarity moved to row 7.
• Berserk: Heart of the Lion and Berserk: Frenzy moved within row 7 and connections changed.
• Position of Wild Slashes and utal Strike swapped in their choice node.
• Lunar Inspiration now a choice node with Feral Frenzy.

Balance

We’ve reorganized the Balance Druid tree to address Solar Beam’s placement to avoid forcing Balance Druids to make a choice between utility or throughput. While addressing this, we wanted to make some changes to the overall flow of the tree and distribute more power to the later parts of the tree.

Cosmic Rapidity

Circle of Life and Death offered an interesting playstyle choice for Balance, however, with Balance’s new Mastery the juggling felt much more intense and punishing. Cosmic Rapidity increases the rate Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare deal damage without reducing their duration to reduce how often Balance needs to refresh their DoTs in order to benefit from their Mastery.

Multiple Rank Adjustments

Talents such as Aetherial Kindling and Solstice didn’t feel impactful enough to warrant multiple talent points to achieve their maximum value. The ranks that were removed from these talents were redistributed to other talents that felt appropriate to have multiple ranks.

Tuning Changes

• Lunar Eclipse no longer increases the critical strike chance of Starfire.
• Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage Starfire deals to nearby enemies by 50%.
• Umbral Intensity now further increases the damage Starfire deals to nearby enemies by 10/20%.
• Circle of Life and Death has been removed.
• New Talent: Cosmic Rapidity – Your Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare deal damage 25% faster.

Talents

• Solstice’s max rank is now 1.
• Aetherial Kindling’s max rank is now 1.
• Power of Goldrinn’s max rank is now 2.
• Cosmic Rapidity’s (replaced Circle of Life and Death) max rank is now 2.

Guardian

Ursine Adept

Ursine Adept concentrated too much rotational functionality and defensive power into a single node. We didn’t feel taking it or not offered enough choice to players, so we changed it to a Guardian baseline ability and adjusted the initial section of the tree to account for its absence. Additionally, in recognition of how prohibitively dangerous it often is to cast Innervate in combat, we’ve added it to the list of abilities which may be cast in Bear Form.

Final Gate

In this most recent look at the Guardian tree, our primary objective was to open up the final section of the tree. In the previous iteration, there were several bottlenecks restricting access to each final segment. We’ve added new connections and shuffled talent locations around to allow more points of entry into this section of the tree and offer more freedom of choice.

Reinvigoration felt like an outlier both in terms of interest and power level in the final gate, so it has switched positions with Flashing Claws.

To preserve point balance and to maintain decision-making tension, we’ve also added a few more abilities in this section:

• Thorns of Iron: When you cast Ironfur, also deal Physical damage equal to 30% of your armor, split among enemies within 12 yards.
• Raze: Strike with the might of Ursoc, dealing 70% of AP Physical damage to all enemies in front of you. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets. (Replaces Maul)
• Moonless Night: When you cast a single-target ability on an enemy afflicted by Moonfire, you cause them to burn for an additional 10% Arcane damage.
• Lunar Beam: Summons a beam of lunar light at your location, dealing 10% of AP Arcane damage and healing you for 35% of AP over 8.5 seconds.

Some talents have changed icons to avoid duplication.

Talents

World of Warcraft Version 10.0.5 PTR

This Public Test Realm (PTR) is a testing environment for the content coming with the Dragonflight 10.0.5 update.

Dragonflight 10.0.5 Update Development Notes

New Feature: Trading Post

A new feature is making its way to World of Warcraft — the Trading Post! Complete monthly activities to earn currency toward decking out your characters in cosmetic transmogs, pets, and mounts— with new items and activities introduced every month.

A set of traders will be moving their wares into the capital cities of Stormwind and Orgrimmar—T&W (Tawny and Wilder) and Zen’shiri Trading Posts. You’ll find T&W just outside of the Mage District in Stormwind and the Zen’shiri Trading Post next to Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar.

To obtain these unique cosmetic items, you will need to acquire a new account-wide currency called “Trader’s Tender.” This can be earned in two ways:

• Automatically each month: Just by logging in and heading to the Trading Post, you can collect 500 Trader’s Tender every month from a chest called the Collector’s Cache.
• By completing monthly activities in the Traveler’s Log: A monthly set of activities provides the opportunity to earn up to 500 additional Trader’s Tender.

The final Trader’s Tender amounts are subject to change. We’ll be iterating on this new feature as we test on the PTR.

Classes

• Druid
  
  • Classes
    
    • All Druids now learn Swipe at level 10.
    • Swipe and Brutal slash damage reduced by 50%.
    • Killer Instinct changed to 2 points, granting 3/6% physical damage and armor.
    • Nurturing Instinct changed to 2 points, granting 3/6% magical damage and healing.
    • New Talent: Improved Swipe – Increases Swipe and Brutal Slash damage by 100%.
    • New Talent: Forestwalk – Casting Regrowth increases your movement speed and healing received by 5% for 3/6 seconds.
    • New Talent: Gale Winds – Increases Typhoon’s radius by 20% and range by 5 yards.
    • New Talent: Incessant Tempest: Reduces the cooldown of Typhoon by 5 seconds.
    • New connection between Rake and Rip.
    • New connection between Maim and Tireless Pursuit.
    • New connections connecting Skull Bash to Primal Fury and Matted Fur.
    • New connection between Verdant Heart and Ironfur.
    • Wild Growth moved up and Remove Curse moved to the side.
    • Improved Rejuvenation moved up the tree.
    • Sunfire moved up and Starsurge moved to the side.
    • Feral druids now start with Rip instead of Thrash.
  • Balance
    
    • The Balance Druid tree has been redesigned.
    • Lunar Eclipse no longer increases the critical strike chance of Starfire.
    • Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage Starfire deals to nearby enemies by 50%.
    • Umbral Intensity now further increases the damage Starfire deals to nearby enemies by 10/20%.
    • Circle of Life and Death has been removed.
    • New Talent: Cosmic Rapidity – Your Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare deal damage 13/25% faster.
  • Guardian
    
    • The Guardian Druid tree has been redesigned.
    • Ursine Adept is now baseline.
    • Innervate can now be cast in Bear Form.
    • Front of the Pack moved to row 3.
    • Flashing Claws switched positions with Reinvigoration.
    • New Talent: Thorns of Iron – When you cast Ironfur, you also deal Physical damage equal to 30% of your armor, split among enemies within 12 yards.
    • New Talent: Raze – Strike with the might of Ursoc, dealing Physical damage to all enemies in front of you. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
    • New Talent: Moonless Night – When you cast a single-target ability on an enemy afflicted by Moonfire, you cause them to burn for an additional 10% Arcane damage.
    • New Talent: Lunar Beam – Summons a beam of lunar light at your location, dealing Arcane damage and healing you over 8.5 seconds. Pathing restructured.
    • Earthwarden, Tooth and Claw, Reinforced Fur, and After the Wildfire/Guardian of Elune now have connections into the final gate section.
    • Pulverize, Blood Frenzy, and Twin Moonfire have found slightly different homes.
    • Vicious Cycle, Fury of Nature, and Scintillating Moonlight have changed icons.
  • Feral
    
    • Circle of Life and Death damage over time duration compression reduced to 20% (was 25%).
    • Taste for Blood bonus to Ferocious Bite damage increased to 4/8% per bleed on the target (was 2/4%).
    • Rampant Ferocity damage increased to 35% of Ferocious Bite damage (was 25%).
    • Dreadful Bleeding bonus to Rip damage reduced to 15% (was 20%).
    • Infected Wounds bonus to Rake damage reduced to 25% (was 30%).
    • Veinripper increase to bleed durations increased to 33% (was 25%).
    • Lunar Inspiration damage increased by 66%.
    • Tear Open Wounds moved to row 4
    • Survival Instincts moved to row 5.
    • Infected Wounds moved to row 5.
    • Berserk moved to row 6.
    • Moment of Clarity moved to row 7.
    • Berserk: Heart of the Lion and Berserk: Frenzy moved within row 7 and connections changed.
    • Position of Wild Slashes and Brutal Strike swapped in their choice node.
    • Lunar Inspiration now a choice node with Feral Frenzy.
• Evoker
  
  • Preservation
    
    • Redesigned the delivery method for Temporal Anomaly’s absorb shields. Absorb shields are now applied to all allies it passes through, with absorb effectiveness reduced beyond 5 (was: pulses 3 times and heals 2 allies per pulse). Its speed has also been increased by 40%, and the orb will no longer slow down when it detects an ally in its radius.
    • Temporal Anomaly cooldown increased to 15 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Nozdormu’s Teachings has been redesigned – Now reduces the cooldown of Empower spells by 5 seconds when Temporal Anomaly is cast.
    • Resonating Sphere now applies Echo to the first 6 allies it passes through.
    • Time of Need cooldown reduced to 60 seconds (was 90 seconds).
• Hunter
  
  • Marksmanship
    
    • Salvo has been redesigned – Your next Multi-Shot or Volley now also applies Explosive Shot to up to 2 targets hit. 45 second cooldown.
    • Double Tap has been removed and has been replaced by Tactical Reload in the Talent tree.
    • New Talent: Tactical Reload – Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire cooldown reduced by 10%.
    • Tactical Reload and Steady Focus have swapped positions in the Talent tree.
    • Calling the Shots now reduces the cooldown of Trueshot by 2.5 seconds per 50 Focus spent (was 1.5 seconds).
• Monk
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • New Talent: Sheilun’s Gift – Draws in all nearby clouds of mist, healing up to 3 nearby allies per cloud absorbed. A cloud of mist is generated every 8 seconds while in combat.
    • New Talent: Veil of Pride – Increases Sheilun’s Gift cloud of mist generation to every 4 seconds.
    • New Talent: Shaohao’s Lessons – Each time you cast Sheilun’s Gift, you learn one of Shaohao’s Lessons for up to 30 seconds, based on how many clouds of mist are consumed.
    • New Talent: Lesson of Doubt – You do up 30% more damage and healing to targets, based on their current health.
    • New Talent: Lesson of Despair – Your Critical Strike is increased by 25% while above 80% health.
    • New Talent: Lesson of Fear – Decreases your damage taken by 15% and increases your Haste by 20%.
    • New Talent: Lesson of Anger – 20% of the damage or healing you deal is duplicated every 4 seconds.
    • New Talent: Burst of Life – Life Cocoon’s cooldown is reduced by 20 seconds, but its absorb amount is reduced by 40%. When Life Cocoon expires, it releases a burst of mist that restores health to 3 nearby allies. Choice node with Calming Coalescence.
    • Revival healing now increased by 100% while not in a raid.
    • Added a connection from the Veil of Pride/Shaohao’s Lesson choice node to the Rising Mist/Tear of Morning choice node.
    • Bonedust Brew removed and replaced with Sheilun’s Gift.
    • Attenuation removed and replaced with Shaohao’s Lessons.
    • Bountiful Brew removed and replaced with Veil of Pride.
• Paladin
  
  • Holy
    
    • Blessing of Winter has been redesigned – Now restores 1% mana per 2 seconds. Only castable on friendly healers.
    • Avenging Crusader now costs 5 Holy Power (was 50% of base mana), reduced cooldown to 45 seconds (was 2 minutes) and reduced duration to 12 seconds (was 20 seconds).
    • Tower of Radiance now causes Holy Light and Flash of Light to additionally have a chance to grant a Holy Power based on your target’s current health when cast on targets without Beacon of Light, increasing to 100% on targets below 50% health.
    • Inflorescence of the Sunwell now grants a Holy Power every third cast of Holy Light with Infusion of Light (was 30% chance).
• Priest
  
  • Classes
    
    • New Talent: Petrifying Scream – Psychic Scream causes enemies to tremble in place instead of fleeing in fear.
    • Surge of Light now properly triggers from all healing spells.
    • The root effect of Void Tendrils is now displayed on enemy nameplates.
  • Discipline
    
    • Pain Transformation now causes Pain Suppression to heal your target for 25% of maximum health (was 12%).
    • Protector of the Frail now also grants Pain Suppression an additional charge.
    • Light’s Wrath now costs 2% of base mana.
    • Power Word: Solace damage reduced by 15%.
    • Mind Blast now costs 1.6% of base mana (was 2.5%).
    • Painful Punishment now increases the duration of Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked by 1.5 seconds (was 0.7 seconds).
    • Embrace Shadow now increases the duration of Shadow Covenant by 8 seconds (was 4 seconds).
    • Twilight Corruption has been redesigned – Shadow Covenant increases the damage and healing of Shadow spells by an additional 10%.
    • Shadow Covenant now converts Penance to a Shadow spell.
    • Dark Reprimand (Shadow Penance) can now be cast on allies.
    • Stolen Psyche has been redesigned and renamed to Abyssal Reverie – Atonement heals for 10%/20% more when activated by Shadow spells.
    • Train of Thought causes Power Word: Solace to trigger a cooldown reduction for Penance in addition to Smite.
    • Blaze of Light increases the damage of Power Word: Solace in addition to Smite and Penance.
    • Weal and Woe increases the damage of Power Word: Solace in addition to Smite.
    • Wrath Unleashed increases the damage of Power Word: Solace in addition to Smite.
    • Harsh Discipline can trigger from Power Word: Solace and Mind Blast in addition to Smite. This talent is no longer tracked through Smite and instead appears on the Personal Resource Display.
    • Void Summoner can now trigger from Power Word: Solace in addition to Smite, Mind Blast, and Penance.
    • Added a few connections to the sides of row 6 to row 8 for Discipline.
    • Fixed an issue preventing Dark Reprimand from consuming Power of the Dark Side.
  • Holy
    
    • Burning Vehemence and Searing Light have swapped positions in the talent tree.
    • Searing Light is now a 1-point talent. Smite and Holy Nova to deal 25% increased damage to targets affected by Holy Fire. (unchanged)
    • Burning Vehemence is now a 2-point talent and has been redesigned – Increases the damage of Holy Fire by 15%/30%. Holy Fire deals 15%/30% of its initial damage to all nearby enemies within 12 yards of your target. Damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
    • Prayers of the Virtuous now increases the maximum stack count of Prayer of Mending by 2 per point.
  • Shadow
    
    • Resolved an issue causing the Shadow versions of Halo and Divine Star to cost less Mana than the Holy versions.
    • Divine Star now generates 6 Insanity.
    • Halo now generates 10 Insanity.
    • Mindgames now generates 10 Insanity.
• Shaman
  
  • Restoration
    
    • Healing Tide Totem healing now increased by 100% while not in a raid.
• Warlock
  
  • Classes
    
    • Soulkeeper has been redesigned – Summons a Soulkeeper that consumes all Tormented Souls you’ve collected, blasting nearby enemies for Chaos damage per soul consumed over 8 seconds. You collect Tormented Souls from each target you kill and occasionally escaped souls you previously collected.
    • Inquisitor’s Gaze is now passive and has been redesigned – Your spells and abilities have a chance to summon an Inquisitor’s Eye that deals Chaos damage over time.
      
      • Developers’ note: Soulkeeper scaling its duration based on souls consumed has felt a bit awkward to use so we’re revising the spell to scale its damage instead. Inquisitor’s Gaze being active all the time lends itself to having lower throughput than we’d like. We’re redesigning it to be a frequent proc that deals considerable damage instead of a buff that you click and forget.
  • Affliction
    
    • Soul Tap has been removed.
    • Pandemic Invocation has been moved to row 6 and is now a 1 rank talent.
    • New Talent: Focused Malignancy – Malefic Rapture deals 15/30% increased damage to targets suffering from Unstable Affliction.
    • Soul Swap has been redesigned – Copies your damage over time effects from the target, preserving their duration. Your next use of Soul Swap within 10 seconds will exhale a copy of the effects onto a new target.
      
      • Developers’ note: With regards to Affliction, its rotational global cooldown (GCD) traffic has been a bit higher than we’d like. Soul Tap in particular we’re cutting to help lessen GCD traffic and its heavy reliance on addons to tell when it’s available for use. In its place we’re adding Focused Malignancy, a favored conduit from Shadowlands, that helps Affliction’s single target profile. Lastly, Soul Swap’s current iteration hasn’t been as desirable as we’d like. To address this, we’re testing an older iteration of Soul Swap that should help with Affliction’s ramp.
• Warrior
  
  • Arms
    
    • Defensive Stance is now talented by default.
    • Shuffled the positions of some nodes towards the end of the tree and added some new connections to try and aid the creation of more general builds.
    • Valor in Victory now only 1 rank and now provides 1% Versatility and reduces the cooldown of Die by the Sword by 30 seconds.
    • New Talent: Improved Slam – Slam has a 10% increased chance to critically strike and deals 30% increased critical strike damage.
    • Improved Overpower and Battlelord now also increase the damage of Dreadnaught.
    • Battlelord’s chance to reset the cooldown of Mortal Strike or Cleave increased to 35% (was 25%).
    • Skullsplitter now causes Deep Wounds to expire instantly.
    • Tide of Blood now only causes Rend to expire instantly as Deep Wounds is built into Skullsplitter.
    • Sweeping Strikes is now baseline.
    • New Talent: Spiteful Serenity – Colossus Smash and Avatar’s durations are doubled but their damage bonuses are reduced by 50%.

Creatures and NPCs

• The newly trained Draenei, Lightforged Draenei, Orc, Tauren, and Highmountain Tauren that now specialize in rogue, mage, and priest classes are now located in major capital cities (Stormwind and Orgrimmar) and in their racial cities (Thunder Bluff and the Exodar). Additionally, a Tauren rogue found their way into the Rogue class hall.

Items and Rewards

• Common (white) and Poor (grey) quality equipment can now be used for transmogrification. These items will now become bind-on-equip.
• Enchant illusions can now be applied on Artifact weapons.
• New Toy: Reusable Oversized Bobber – Acquired from catching 100 fish with the Oversized Bobber. The toy version supports all bobbers in your toy collection and will automatically work with new bobber additions.

Player Versus Player

• Precognition duration increased to 5 seconds and now also prevents cast pushback.
• Monk
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Chrysalis (PvP Talent) now reduces Life Cocoon’s cooldown by 30 seconds (was 45 seconds).

Professions

• Warlords of Draenor crafted item appearances have returned. You can purchase recipes for Optional Reagents for each relevant profession from the vendors in your garrison or in Ashran that cost Secrets of [Profession] tomes that are the old daily cooldown craft. Use the Optional Reagents when crafting Warlords of Draenor crafted gear to convert them into the new appearance.
• Portals from Overload Titan-Touched nodes should more consistently take you to a new location.