World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

I hope that corruption improvements in the next build include getting rid of the ranges, otherwise critics will eventually wise up and see this as the real layered RNG component
Yep, agreed that having random ranges for those values will just be a source of frustration. These will be static values in the next PTR update. We got in a pretty rough version of the system just to start getting early feedback; lots and lots of iteration to follow. (WatcherDev)

This Hallow’s End, charge into battle astride a Warforged Nightmare, unleashing unbridled chaos upon your enemies! Those who own this terrifying steed, crafted from cold steel and vengeful spirits by grandmaster smiths, are also able to place a Nightmarish Hitching Post. This mysterious artifact has the power to summon a Warforged Nightmare for every member of your war party strong enough to handle the reins and worthy enough to be given the honor.


For a limited time, you can get 50% off* the regular price of the Warforged Nightmare** mount. Get yours now from the Blizzard Shop and in-game shop.

*Sale ends October 28, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. PDT.

**Warforged Nightmare not available in World of Warcraft® Classic.

The most recent PTR build introduced an early version of our Corrupted Items system, and we’d like to highlight a few aspects of how the Corruption system works, and our goals as we iterate on it.

How Corruption Works
Items from Ny’alotha, Mythic Keystone dungeons in Season 4, BfA PvP Season 4, the Heroic Darkshore Warfront, and other new sources of loot that are updated with Season 4 will not be able to Warforge or Titanforge. Items from older content will retain an effective “ceiling” of item level 455, as they do today.

There will be a chance for these new items to be Corrupted by N’Zoth. A Corrupted item has a powerful beneficial property, similar to many of the Benthic effects seen in Nazjatar, but has a new detrimental stat: Corruption. Items can have varying levels of Corruption, with the amount of Corruption present correlating directly with the power of the beneficial upside (for example: an item might give 4% Critical Strike damage and 10 Corruption, or 6% Critical Strike damage and 15 Corruption).

Corruption represents the influence of N’Zoth, which will have negative effects on the wearer. As Corruption increases, a series of drawbacks are activated. You might remember how Corruption worked on the Cho’gall encounter back in Bastion of Twilight – that was a source of inspiration here. The drawbacks currently on the PTR are works-in-progress and not-yet-tuned, and we have changes already implemented in the next PTR build. Our general intent is for low Corruption to activate a minor effect that most people can play around without too much difficulty, medium levels of Corruption to activate a couple more effects that have a higher skill cap (nd may be more situational in where and when someone can handle having them active), and high levels of Corruption to be prohibitive, and virtually never worth it.

Gear that makes your character worse when you equip it doesn’t sound terribly appealing, but fortunately there will be a few ways of dealing with Corruption. The legendary cloak that players will earn from Wrathion early on in Visions of N’Zoth will negate some Corruption, and can be upgraded through entering and completing Horrific Visions to provide even more of a bulwark against Corruption.

Early on, we expect that players might wear one or maybe two pieces of Corrupted gear at a time. Later on, three or four pieces might be manageable. The vast majority of the gear players wear, even later on, will not be Corrupted. And these perks aren’t planned to be slot-restricted, so if there’s a specific power you want, there should never be a concern that your item needs to roll with that affix to be useful.

We also never want an item that would otherwise be an upgrade to feel unusable as a result of being Corrupted, so any Corrupted items can be taken to the Heart Forge and purified without restriction . If you get that trinket you’ve been hoping for, but it’s Corrupted with a beneficial effect you don’t like, or wearing it would push you above a Corruption threshold you’re comfortable with, just purify the item and carry on.

Itemization Philosophy
With itemization, we’re always looking for opportunities to create moments of excitement and choices and options to customize your gameplay to suit your playstyle and the content you choose to play. Warforging created some of this by allowing useful rewards to come from a wide range of content, and ensuring that there was almost always at least the chance of an upgrade from any repeat boss kill or other source of loot. However, as we’ve seen and heard clearly in feedback over the past years, it has also brought significant downsides: Progression feels less rewarding, as players killing a raid boss on a new difficulty for the first time often disenchant much of the loot because they have equal or better Warforged items from lower difficulties or other sources. In addition, the feeling that a given item could have Warforged more and been even better can leave a sense of disappointment at what should have been a clear reward moment. And the sense that these systems are out of players’ direct control makes it harder to work towards a clear goal or state of completion.

The Corruption system isn’t a permanent addition to World of Warcraft, but it is an extension of the theme of N’Zoth’s pervasive and growing influence over Azeroth. As we explore this over the course of the PTR, we’d love to hear feedback about the initial round of powers showing up on items, Corruption drawbacks that may be excessively punitive, and the system as a whole.

Please feel free to reply with your feedback here in this thread. Thank you very much!

Today, we took the final step to reach a state where there are no longer multiple layers on the following realms:

• Atiesh
• Benediction
• Bigglesworth
• Blaumeux
• Bloodsail Buccaneers
• Grobbulus
• Kirtonos
• Kromcrush
• Mankrik
• Myzrael
• Rattlegore
• Skeram
• Stalagg
• Sulfuras
• Thunderfury
• Westfall
• Yojamba (Australia)

These are in addition to the realms that we listed on October 3.

We continue to closely monitor player populations and realm performance, and we expect to move the remaining layered realms to their final state soon.

Free Character Moves continue to be available from many of the highest-populated realms, and as before, we suggest that anyone considering using that service do so as soon as possible.

We’ve seen and heard all of your feedback that German Classic players are ready for an RP realm, so we’re opening one this week!

On Friday 25th October, at 01:00 CEST, the new German RP realm Celebras will open. At the same time, we will open the following Free Character Moves:

FROM - TO

• Everlook - Celebras
• Lakeshire - Celebras
• Razorfen - Celebras
• Hydraxian Waterlords - Celebras

We look forward to seeing what the German RP community accomplishes with this new realm!

I’ve updated the Affliction section in the OP with recent new changes. It now reads:

• Warlock
  
  • Affliction
    
    • Deathbolt now deals 20% of the total remaining damage of the Warlock’s damage over time effects on the target (was 30%).
    • Drain Soul damage increased by 50%.
    • Nightfall now increases the damage of Shadow Bolt by 50% (was 25%), and now activates 33% more often.
      
      • *Developers’ notes: One of the key concepts about Affliction Warlock is spreading damage over time spells on a number of different targets. While Deathbolt keys off these types of spells, it provides more-than-expected burst damage and outperforms the other two talents in every situation. In addition to reducing Deathbolt’s effectiveness, we’re improving the other two options to give more options to Affliction Warlocks.

There is a bug? where the minor’s CDR doesn’t apply to abilities granted from Conflict & Strife majors and wasn’t sure if this was a bug or intended but this does diminish the usefulness of this minor with C&S major users.

This is currently working as intended. This cooldown reduction doesn’t apply to any of the “passive” Essences, including Vision of Perfection, Conflict and Strife (and any ability gained from slotting it), and the new Touch of the Everlasting.

So, I guess the question is, what type of scenarios might unfold that would be appropriate for this essence?
What would you consider the use case for it, and how will you react when its obviously either too strong or too weak for that use case?
The Formless Void mostly exists for the purposes of flexibility, which is why all roles can use it. It requires a lot of planning, it requires you to coordinate and know who you plan on borrowing what Essence from, and for what situation, and make sure that the cooldown incurred doesn’t interfere with whatever the next situation you have to manage is.
As a note, you can also borrow something from a player of the enemy faction. The targeting is very unrestricted other than the obvious - it has to be a player, they need to have an Essence currently slotted that is valid to copy (fully passives Major Essences are ineligible).

Does the “Formless Void” essence require the correct role to copy an essence. For example, could you copy the tank Azshara raid essence as a dps to gain access to a defensive cooldown for a particularly nasty damage taken check, or could you copy a dps essence as a tank or a healer in order to push a particularly challenging dps check.
You can borrow any eligible Essence, even if it is not normally available to your current role. For example, a Protection Paladin player can borrow a healer specific thing such as the new Spirit of Preservation, or a DPS specific thing such as Essence of the Focusing Iris.