World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Classes

• Druid
  
  • Born Anew's (Conduit) primary stat bonus reduces to 20 upon the beginning of a new encounter.
    
    • Developers’ note: The intent of this bonus is to provide a benefit when using resurrections in combat. But it is best to avoid situations where players might feel compelled to min/max something like this before starting a pull.
      
• Priest
  
  • Shadow
    
    • Shadow Crash's (Talent) ground visual will now match the area effect.
      
    • Void Volley's (PvP Talent) ground visuals will now match the area effect and has more defined edges.
      
• Warrior
  
  • Arms
    
    • Fixed an issue where Swift Patrol (Niya Soulbind) caused the auto-attack timer to reset.
      

Creatures ad NPCs

• Players now have a 2 second grace period to keep their vision of targets within the area contained by the Soul Chains between the Soul Cages during the Mor'geth encounter.
  
• Reduced the number of Prince Renathals in Sinfall. Press F to pay respects.

Dungeons and Raids

• Sanctum of Domination
  
  • Defeating Sylvanas Windrunner on Mythic difficulty will now reward 2 Vengeance’s Reins.
    
  • Remnant of Ner’zhul
    
    • Players can no longer cause a second orb to become non-interactable while carrying an Orb of Torment.
      
• Plaguefall
  
  • You must now defeat the first three bosses of the dungeon before the door to Margrave Stradama opens on all difficulties.
    
    • Developers’ note: The first two bosses of the dungeon were frequently being skipped in lower-difficulty dungeons, typically by groups who were trying to earn Renown much faster than intended. To improve players' Renown earnings, we've also added a chance for Renown to be earned by completing layers in Torghast (see hotfix below).
      

Items and Rewards

• Teleporter Repair Kits should no longer have a Unique count and will now stack to 50.
  
• Repaired Riftkeys will also now stack to 50.
  
  • Developers’ note: Early in development, Teleporter Repair Kits and Repaired Riftkeys were only available from the vendor. Based on player feedback of not knowing if they were worth purchasing, we decided to have them drop occasionally as well. Now that these items dropped and became out of player’s control, we should have removed the unique cap on the Teleporter Repair Kits then. Also, since you have access to purchasing the Teleporter Repair Kits or Repaired Rift Keys, we are disabling them from going to mail if you loot one with a full inventory so they will no longer fill up your mailbox.
    
  
  
• The item levels of Conduits sold by the Rated PvP vendor have been corrected.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Salvaged Fusion Amplifier was not dropping for Marksmanship and Beastmaster Hunters.

Quests

• Fixed an issue during “Nal’ragas” that caused internal text to be visible to users of certain nameplate addons.

Torghast

• Renown is now a possible reward from Torghast completions, with better chances at Renown coming from higher Torghast difficulties.

We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.

The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.

The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.

We put tremendous effort in creating fair and rewarding compensation packages and policies that reflect our culture and business, and we strive to pay all employees fairly for equal or substantially similar work. We take a variety of proactive steps to ensure that pay is driven by non-discriminatory factors. For example, we reward and compensate employees based on their performance, and we conduct extensive anti-discrimination trainings including for those who are part of the compensation process.

We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.

Journey to the frozen continent of Azeroth to face the armies of the Lich King this fall when you pre-purchase the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King–A Pandemic System Board Game.


In the Wrath of the Lich King board game, players control one of Azeroth’s heroes and fight their way through the Scourge to reach the throne of fallen Prince Arthas, now feared throughout Azeroth as the terrifying Lich King. Adventure across the frozen continent of Northrend, take on quests, battle monstrous entities, and more to retake Azeroth from the Lich King.


World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - A Pandemic System Board Game includes:

• The Pandemic system with familiar mechanics and gameplay, now tweaked to embrace the World of Warcraft universe.
  
• An extra-large game board featuring forts, temples, battlegrounds and iconic locations native to Azeroth.
  
• Legendary World of Warcraft characters with detailed and sculpted plastic figures, including Thrall, the Warchief of the Horde; Varian Wrynn, King of Stormwind; and Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken.
  
• Quests, a brand-new mechanic to Pandemic that sees players adventuring across Northrend to battle monstrous entities, destroy evil relics, and more.
  
• Hero Cards that give players an edge against their enemies in the form of equipment for more attack power during combat, special mounts that allow players to move more spaces on their turn, healing potions to restore hit points, and much more.

To learn more about World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King – A Pandemic System Board Game, Pandemic, and Z-man games, go to www.zmangames.com.

Pre-purchase today on Z-man’s website and on the official Blizzard Gear Store.

Classes

• Mage
  
  • Arcane
    
    • Fixed an issue with the Clearcasting effect gained from Mirrors of Torment (Venthyr Ability) not granting the effects of Amplification while Arcane Empowerment is talented in PvP.
      
• Priest
  
  • When Mass Dispel dispels multiple targets, the order of dispels is now random.
    

Dungeons and Raids

• Sanctum of Domination
  
  • Defeating Sylvanas on any difficulty will now always drop a Shard of Domination for players who do not yet have all possible Shards.
    
  • Remnant of Ner’zhul
    
    • The pendulum around the Penance of the Fallen King swings once again.
      
• Mythic+
  
  • Fixed an issue that could cause small discrepancies in how Mythic+ Rating is displayed in different User Interface elements.
    

Items and Rewards

• Shards of Domination
  
  • Scouring Touch no longer incorrectly removes stealth type effects from the caster when applied to targets.
    
• The amount of Anima dropped by bosses in the Sanctum of Domination is now affected by achievements earned by upgrading your Covenant Sanctum.
  
• The Treatise: The Study of Anima and Harnessing Every Drop should now work on Korthia dailies, rares, and treasures as well as the Covenant Maw Assault quests.
  
  • Developers’ note: The original goal was for the Treatise items to give you bonuses when returning to the 4 non-Maw zones or to the Maw proper for the Stygia Treatise. Korthia was themed to be part of the Maw during development and so it was not included. However, since we didn't clarify that well and Korthia is abundant in Anima having not originated in the Maw, we are enabling this item's bonus there as well. Looking forward, the Treatise: Relics Abound in the Shadowlands awarded at Tier 6 with The Archivists' Codex only works on the four original zone factions as a bonus to players who want a way to speed up their reputation with these factions.
    
• The new socket adding item, Alloy-Warping Facetor and conduit upgrade item, Death-Bound Shard should now be purchasable by all characters on your account from Archivist Roh-Suir once one character has reached Tier 6 Research.
  
• Rae'shalare, Death's Whisper is now classified as a Unique item.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing the Foresworn Aspirant's Robes to not show up in the Kyrian Soulbind dailies or in the Transmog appearances user interface.

Quests

• Resolved a number of issues with the quest "The Nathrezim" in which Mal'Ganis was telling enemies in other player's experiences what to do. He has been notified to stay in his lane.
  
• Added a graveyard that is specific for the quest "The Nathrezim."
  
  • Developers’ note: This should eliminate the long run back to the quest if it is in progress and reduce some of the timing bugs that were coming up with Mal'Ganis' gloating moments.
    

The Maw

• Fixed an issue where players who accepted a queue in the middle of flying to the Beastwarrens would be pacified until relogging.

Torghast

• Completing the Adamant Vaults will now always reward Anima and significantly more gold.
  
• Bosses in the Adamant Vaults no longer regenerate health after defeating players.