World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Details

• Venue: Online - YouTube.com/Warcraft
  
• Regions: Europe and Americas
  
• Dates:
  
  • March 18-19 - Cup 1
    
  • March 25-27 - Cup 2
    
  • April 1-3 - Cup 3
    
  • April 8-10 - Cup 4
    
• Broadcast Start Time: 10:00 am PT
  
• Prize Pool: $700,000 (USD) across the entire season and Global Finals
  
  • Cups $10,000 USD (per region per Cup)
    
• Format: Double elimination, best of 5

Meet the Casters

• Gillian “Eiya” Long
• Sid “Supatease” Compston
• Elliott “Venruki” Venczel
• Mohamed “Ziqo” Beshir

Greetings!

The Creation Catalyst will become available to players after scheduled maintenance the week of April 12. To access it, you will travel to the far south area of Zereth Mortis that is the Catalyst Gardens. The Creation Catalyst is on a floating island above the main pool area and can be reached via flying or using a small teleporter right below it.


At a base level, how it works is you input a piece of Season 3 gear and a corresponding tier set piece will be made with a matching item level. The useable items can be Season 3 gear from raids, Mythic+, PvP, World Boss Antros, or items purchased with Sandworn Relics from Rafiq in Pilgrim’s Grace, Zereth Mortis. The applicable slots are helms, shoulders, cloaks, chests, bracers, gloves, belts, legs, and boots. Note that the 2-piece and 4-piece set bonuses will only be on the helms, shoulders, chests, gloves, and legs.

The Creation Catalyst can transform one item per week, but it can store up these charges so that if you miss a week you’ll be able to create two set pieces the following week, and alts or players who come along later in the Season may be able to create an entire set if they have the Flux for it.

The Catalyst will use the Cosmic Flux currency that is earned from a wide variety of activities in the game. The costs for the different item slots are:

• Bracers and Cloaks: 600
• Belts and Boots: 800
• Gloves and Shoulders: 1200
• Chests, Helms, and Legs: 1500

If a character vendored, disenchanted, or destroyed a Season 3 item that you want to use for this system, please visit the World of Warcraft Item Restoration page for assistance.

Some additional details:

Q: When creating tier set items with the Creation Catalyst, what is the item level of the tier piece after the process is complete? Is it the same item level as the base piece given to the Creation Catalyst or are there item level ranges that snap to LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic item levels for tier?
A: The resulting item will have the same item level of the item that you put into the catalyst. It also keeps Mythic/PvP upgrade paths, tertiary stats (leech, speed, etc.), and sockets.

Q: Are tier set items created by the Creation Catalyst upgradeable or do you need to remake the tier with a higher item level base piece?
A: You’ll want to remake it with a higher item level base piece, unless the initial version had an upgrade path from PvP or Mythic+ and you earned currency to allow it to be upgraded in that way. For example, if you convert a non-set 9/12 helm from Mythic+ to a 9/12 tier piece, you will be able to use the Valor currency to upgrade it to a 12/12 tier piece.

Q: What secondary stats (Haste, Versatility, etc.) will be on the items made by the Creation Catalyst?
A: The tier pieces all have specific secondary stats regardless of what item is put into the system, only the tertiary stats (Leech, Speed, etc.), and sockets carry over.

Classes

• Hunter
  
  • Survival
    
    • Corrected an issue where Wildfire Infusion talented variants of Wildfire Bomb could sometimes incorrectly deal damage to a single target multiple times from a single Wildfire Bomb cast.
      

Dungeons and Raids

• Sepulcher of the First Ones
  
  • Non-boss enemies
    
    • Dominated Shaper, Overthrown Protector, and Overthrown Artisan's Enveloping Dread range reduced to 40 yards (was 100 yards).
      
  • Vigilant Guardian
    
    • Fixed an issue where Dancing Rune Weapon would not correctly mimic a Blood Death Knight’s ability while in combat with the Vigilant Guardian.
      
  • Lihuvim, Principal Architect
    
    • Deconstructing Blast should now be cast more reliably on all difficulties.
      
  • Halondrus
    
    • Fixed an issue that allowed players to encounter Halondrus before completing the Skolex and Artificer Xy'mox encounters.
      
  • Anduin Wrynn
    
    • Fixed an issue that caused the Domination's Grasp Raid Finder section to stop accepting new members after Anduin was defeated.

We’ve just updated the Season of Mastery PTR again to a new build 43154 and the realms are available now for testing.

Economy Adjustments

• We’ve made adjustments to certain professions and the availability of many crafting materials:
  
  • Removed the level 60 requirement for alchemists to proc additional items from successful crafts. Level 300 Alchemy is still required to see procs, however.
  • Removed the level 60 requirement for Herbalists to receive black lotus from high-level herb spawns.
  • Successful crafts of Arcanite Bars, Mooncloth, and Cured Rugged hide will now proc additional bars, cloth, or hides, respectively.
  • Made significant adjustments to the respawn times of almost all herbalism nodes. In many cases the minimum and maximum respawn times have been reduced by half, or more. This is in addition to the respawn timer changes made in earlier content phases of Season of Mastery.
  • Thanks to improvements in fishing line technology across Azeroth, it is now possible to receive multiple Firefin Snapper, Oily Blackmouth, and Stonescale Eel fish from a single successful fishing attempt.
  • Increased the amount of Elemental Water, Earth, and Fire from relevant herbalism and mining nodes.
  • Added a chance for more than one Demonic Rune to drop at once from creatures that would normally drop Demonic Runes such as Satyrs.

Ahn’Qiraj

• Greatly increased the availability of Scarabs, Idols, and Coffer Keys in both the Ruins and Temple of Ahn’Qiraj.

Zul’Gurub

• Greatly increased the availability of Bijous and Coins from all sources in Zul’Gurub.
• Hakkar will also now drop a cache of Bijous when killed.