World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Classes

• Warlock
  
  • Demonology
    
    • Call Dreadstalkers should now be able to leap to Mueh’zala in De Other Side and use Dreadbite successfully.

Dungeons and Raids

• Sanctum of Domination
  
  • Painsmith Raznal
    
    • Fixed an issue causing Painsmith to sometimes stop and cast the weapon throw of Cruciform Axe, Reverberating Hammer, and Dualblade Scythe during his transition.
    • Fixed an issue causing Shadowsteel Chains to persist into Stage Two if players were affected by Podtender (Dreamweaver Soulbind) during the transition.

WoW Classic

• Fixed issues that caused the talents Permafrost, Camouflage, Amplify Curse, Improved Curse of Exhaustion, Improved Enslave Demon, and Pathfinding to not be applying all of their effects correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the Battle Map could cause the User Interface to become non-responsive.
• Fixed an issue with missing footsteps for Dwarves and when riding ram and horse mounts.
• Fixed an issue that occurs when selecting a player in the Guild User Interface.
• Fixed an issue that occurs when reordering global channels in Chat Settings.

Over the last few weeks, artists and writers across the WoW team have updated a small number of old quests, art assets, names, and dialogue that we identified as outdated and inconsistent with our values as a team. These updates are a relatively small part of a comprehensive, company-wide effort to improve the WoW team and Blizzard as a whole, but they’re important to us as developers.

In early August, we set up internal channels where the WoW team could share feedback on content that doesn't represent who we are as a team today. During this time, we also gathered a great deal of feedback from players on practically every aspect of the game. The player feedback influenced many gameplay improvements we’re working on for patch 9.1.5, and our internal feedback identified some in-game content that is inconsistent with our goal of building an inclusive and welcoming game world.

In a game that has thousands of art elements and a word count in the millions, we recognize that these updates will amount to very few total changes overall. Nonetheless, we believe these changes are worthwhile. World of Warcraft is meant to evolve over time, and every day, new players from every walk of life and every corner of the world experience our in-game content for the very first time. As a team, we want the world they see to stand as an expression of our talents and principles.

Goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be. Still, we want to remain mindful of whether certain elements of that world are welcoming to all players. In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not punch down.

Occasionally, when determining whether to adjust content, there can be circumstances that further complicate our decision-making. For example, some of the art that populates our world is often re-used throughout the game. To be certain that we don’t have any instances in which this art appears in a way that is not respectful, in some cases, we might opt to replace specific elements entirely. It’s important to us that we ensure Azeroth is the best place it can be for everyone, and we will continue to improve our processes when it comes to this kind of decision-making.

We also want players to be able to express themselves through their characters, so we don’t intend to change existing player looks or cosmetics. Instead, we want to ensure that we're offering a wide range of options for players to represent themselves. This work is ongoing alongside our development of new content and features. You’re going to see more of it soon in 9.1.5, and in updates to come—and where applicable, in WoW Classic as well. An example of a post-9.1.5 improvement is the creation of an incubus demon, which we can add to places where succubus models currently appear. We're also planning to make the incubus a glyphable option for Warlocks when they summon that classification of demon.

As WoW continues to evolve and grow, we’ll keep discussing, reviewing, and acting on this kind of feedback. As always, we’re immeasurably grateful for your input, and we hope you keep it coming.

-- The World of Warcraft Team

Greetings, adventurers! WoW Classic Season of Mastery is coming, giving all players a chance to start fresh and a level playing field. This time around, we’re planning #slightlymorechanges.

We will launch new WoW Classic realms for Season of Mastery. These realms will invite new and current Classic players to begin fresh at level 1 for a complete reset of WoW Classic’s content, starting again at the very beginning of the World of Warcraft saga.

What’s different in WoW Classic Season of Mastery?

As with the first release of WoW Classic, we’re planning six content release phases. In WoW Classic Season of Mastery, however, phase unlocks will happen faster. We’re planning for a 12-month cadence, with phases unlocking roughly every couple months. Here’s the current outline for the six phases:

Phase 1 (WoW Classic Season of Mastery Launch)

• Molten Core
  
• Onyxia
  
• Maraudon
  
• PvP Honor System and Battlegrounds (up from Phases 3 and 4)

Phase 2

• Dire Maul
  
• Azuregos
  
• Kazzak

Phase 3

• Blackwing Lair
  
• Darkmoon Faire
  
• Darkmoon deck drops begin

Phase 4

• Zul’Gurub
  
• Green Dragons

Phase 5

• Ahn’Qiraj War Effort begins
  
• Ahn’Qiraj raids open as the war effort dictates

Phase 6

• Naxxramas
  
• Scourge Invasion

Raid Boss Updates

The original release of WoW Classic was made to re-create the difficulty and challenge of patch 1.12 from the original World of Warcraft release. While we strived to bring a faithful re-creation of that release, many raid encounters turned out to be easier than the first time around—players simply were more experienced and prepared, and patch updates greatly increased player power.

With that in mind, we’re planning a few changes to make those early raid bosses pack a bit more of a punch, and attempt to recapture the original challenge they presented. These changes currently include (but are not limited to):

• World buffs (like Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer and others) disabled in Raid instances
  
• Restoring mechanics that were removed early on to some Raid bosses
  
• No boss debuff limit (up from 16 debuffs in WoW Classic)
  
• Increased health on bosses, to offset player buffs and the removed debuff limit

Our intent with these changes is for this experience to feel somewhat more challenging than WoW Classic did in 2019.

Due to Season of Mastery’s faster content release cadence, we’re also planning several improvements and changes. These include:

Faster Leveling

We’re planning on increasing experience gains from what they were in the first iteration of WoW Classic. Our current plan is to set them close to what the 1-60 XP rates are in Burning Crusade Classic™ with a bigger focus on quest XP increases.

Quality of Life Updates

In addition, we’re planning on introducing certain improvements that weren’t in the original WoW Classic release, but that we think can help create a better experience, such as:

• Meeting Stones converted to Summoning Stones
  
• Increased Mining and Herbalism nodes

Realms tend to be more densely populated in WoW Classic compared to the original 2005 design. Increasing gathering node spawns should provide a more consistent economy this time around.

WoW Classic Season of Mastery will have an Open Beta beginning on October 5. We look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes and many others as we continue to iterate on them. Keep an eye on the forums and https://worldofwarcraft.com/news for the latest developments.