Hotfixes - Aug 10, PCGamer and Mail Esports Interviews, Ghostcrawler Changes Roles

[Stoy]

Patch 8.0.1 Hotfixes - August 10

Appearances and Animations

• The Toad pet family ability "Swarm of Flies" will now continue to swarm around the Toad instead of staying in place.
  
• Hammer of Wrath’s impact visual should now appear on its target.

Classes

• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Frost
    
    • All damage abilities increased by 3%.
      
    • Breath of Sindragosa damage reduced by 12%.
      

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • All Feral Affinity-granted abilities increased by 15%.
    
  • Feral Affinity Energy regen bonus increased to 45% (was 35%).
    
    • Guardian
      
      • Lunar Beam will now correctly heal and deal damage while on an elevator.
        

• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    • All damage abilities increased by 3%.
      
  • Marksmanship
    
    • All damage abilities increased by 3%.
      

• Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Holy Nova damage increased by 20%.
    
    • Holy
      
      • All damage abilities increased by 8%.
        

• Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Assassination
    
    • Crimson Tempest damage reduced by 10%.
      
    • Subterfuge bonus reduced to 80% (was 100%).
      

• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Elemental
    
    • All damage abilities increased 4%.
      

• Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Fear mana cost reduced to 10% (was 15%).
    
  • Affliction
    
    • Summon Darkglare cooldown now resets at the end of encounters.
      
    • Demonology
      
      • All damage abilities increased by 5%.
        

Creatures and NPCs

• Alzzin the Wildshaper no longer deals excessive damage.
  
• Chromie’s health has been increased.
  
• Bastillax’s health has been decreased.
• Darkmoon Faire
  
  • The Blight Boar encounter in Darkmoon Faire is no longer more difficult than intended.

Items

• Fixed a bug that was causing several trinkets to fail to proc when cast at max range.

Player versus Player

• Racial Abilities
  
  • Light's Judgment deals 50% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
    
  • Light's Reckoning deals 50% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
    

• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Unholy Strength increases Strength by 10% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 15%).
    
    • Frost
      
      • Pillar of Frost increases Strength by 10% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 15%).
        
    • Unholy
      
      • Wandering Plague (PvP Talent) damage reduced by 50%.
        
      • Necrotic Strike's (PvP Talent) Necrotic Wound healing absorption reduced by 33%.
        
      • Virulent Plague deals 10% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
        
      • Virulent Explosion deals 10% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
        

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Restoration
    
    • Focused Growth (PvP Talent) reduces the mana cost of Lifebloom by 40% (was 60%).
      
    • Focused Growth (PvP Talent) increases the healing of Lifebloom by 30% (was 50%).
      

• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    • Dire Beast: Hawk (PvP Talent) damage reduced by 40%.
      
  • Marksmanship
    
    • Careful Aim increases Aimed Shot damage by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 100%).
      
    • Aimed Shot deals an additional 15% damage to targets you have not damaged yet when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 50%).
      

• Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Windwalker
    
    • Fists of Fury now deals full damage when engaged in combat with enemy players (was a 20% reduction).
      

• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Retribution
    
    • Righteous Verdict increases the damage of Templar's Verdict by 10% when engaged in PvP combat with enemy players (was 15%).
      
    • Execution Sentence increases damage to the target by 15% when engaged in PvP combat with enemy players (was 20%).
      
    • Word of Glory healing reduced by 20% when engaged in PvP combat with enemy players.
      
    • Divine Purpose increases damage and healing by 20% when engaged in PvP combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
    • Hammer of Reckoning (PvP Talent) gains a stack when targets with your Greater Blessings take 2.5% of your maximum health in damage (was 5%).
      
    • Vengeance Aura (PvP Talent) increases Holy Damage and Critical Strike chance by 3% per stack (was 4%).
      
    • Vengeance Aura's (PvP Talent) duration reduced to 8 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      

• Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Discipline
    
    • Sins of the Many increases damage by 8% when engaged in PvP combat with enemy players (was 12%).
      
    • Trinity (PvP Talent) increases Atonement healing by 12% (was 20%).
      
    • Archangel (PvP Talent) increases healing and absorption by 20% (was 30%).
      
  • Shadow
    
    • Edge of Insanity (PvP Talent) now properly reduces damage taken when at or above 90 Insanity (60 Insanity while talented into Legacy of the Void).
      

• Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Prey on the Weak increases damage dealt to the target by 5% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 10%).
    
  • Death from Above (PvP Talent) increases Eviscerate/Envenom/Dispatch damage dealt by 10% (was 15%).
    
  • Assassination
    
    • Fixed a bug that caused Creeping Venom (PvP Talent)'s duration to be refreshed to a longer duration than intended.
      
    • Creeping Venom (PvP Talent)'s damage has been reduced by 50%.
      
    • Deadly Poison deals 20% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
    • Vendetta increases damage dealt to the target by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
    • Toxic Blade increases Poison damage dealt to the target by 20% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 30%).
      
    • Garrote deals 20% less damage when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      
    • Subterfuge causes Garrote to deal an additional 50% damage when cast from stealth in PvP situations (was 100%).
      
  • Outlaw
    
    • Plunder Armor (PvP Talent) reduces the target's max health by 10% (was 15%).
      
    • Plunder Armor (PvP Talent) increases the Rogue's max health by 10% (was 15%).
      
    • Thick as Thieves (PvP Talent) increases the damage you and your Tricks target deal by 10% (was 15%).
      
    • Brigand's Blitz (Azerite Trait) is no longer gained from Control is King's Adrenaline Rush.
      
  • Subtlety
    
    • Shuriken Combo increases Eviscerate damage by 3% per stack when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 5%).
      
    • Night's Vengeance (Azerite Trait) effectiveness reduced by 66% in PvP situations.
      

• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Restoration
    
    • Spirit Link (PvP Talent) now redirects 35% damage to the team (was 50%).
      
    • Spirit Link's (PvP Talent) mana cost has been increased by 12.5%.
      
    • Spirit Link (PvP Talent) reduces the heal generated by Spouting Spirits (Azerite Trait) by 80%.
      

Quests

• "Continue Your Training: Master Woo" and its corresponding daily quest have been temporarily removed.

PCGamer Interview - Battle for Azeroth's Prepatch Story and Bugs
PCGamer interviewed Ion Hazzikostas and John Hight on the prepatch drama that has happened recently both in terms of the reaction to the story and the bugs.

• The team anticipated that the prepatch events would be pretty controversial.
• Ion loves the Warbringer Jaina short.
• Pragmatic ruthlessness and honor/justic are both encapsulated within the question "what is the Horde?"
• The team had a lot of anticipation to release Old Soldier after the reactions from Warbringer Sylvanas.
• The story of Battle for Azeroth will continue to be expanded on both inside and outside of the game and the pacing should keep people happy and engaged the whole expansion.
• Ion thinks the major reactions to what Sylvanas did is that of questioning if her decisions define the Horde as a whole. Old Soldier is supposed to show that this is not the case.
• The reactions of the community is expected and understandable. Ion mentions the internet's reactions to the Red Wedding during Game of Thrones and how emotions run high when something you love is torn down.
• You can't alienate people and never let them back in, but a good story should have ups and downs that compliment each other.
• A fun part of WoW is that the story is episodic. If it seems like they are doing something blatantly obvious and repeating past stories, people should stay tuned because they are setting you up for a surprise.
• The internet can be a giant game of telephone. During the Blizzcon announcement, the question of Teldrassil was who attacked first, Alliance or Horde? It was to build anticipation until Alpha when the timeline of the events was pretty straightforward.
• People want to look for an explanation for events that make them uncomfortable, but sometimes storytelling is just that.
• If the team had their way, none of the story would be revealed before an expansion, but the benefits of a beta outweigh keeping the entire story a surprise.
• Blizzard tries to keep major story points hidden until they are experienced in the live game. This is mostly done by excluding major cutscenes from testing periods.
• There is a lot of stuff that the players will see for the very first time in just a few days; some really big story beats that they can't wait to share.
• Any time the screen goes black and nothing happens during the beta, this is an indication that there is a missing piece not available to decrypt yet.
• The team likes to use the prepatches now to set up the story and bridge the gaps between expansions.
• Prepatches are previews to something that is a part of the expansion while also having a fleeting "you have to be there to experience it" piece.
• The goal is to make each prepatch deeper and more memorable and act as a rallying cry to come re experience this world.
• The team wants this prepatch to be something that is reflected upon with nostalgia years down the road.
• This time around, the team went back and set up a scaling method that could be done coherently instead of the Warlords one in which each spell was manually readjusted. Applying this massive infrastructure change to 14 years of data came with some unexpected bugs.
• A lot of these bugs were caught during the PTR and beta phase, but it isn't until the live game that you can catch a lot of content that most players test on the PTR.
• Ion says the game is pretty stable at this point and most of the early prepatch issues have been solved.
• The fix involved hand tuning a lot of values. This wasn't a code bug but involved a lot of math. The team had underestimated the impact the absence of artifact weapons would have.
• They wanted to understand understand the underlying issue instead of just blindly fixing them.
• The 60-80 leveling range was sped up because the team agreed this was a range of leveling that was taking longer than intended. They were aware of it in 7.3.5.
• They are tracking the launch of Battle for Azeroth to go well. With the new sharding technology and beta testing, they anticipate the launch to go smoothly even with a global launch.
• The team is happy with the speed that they corrected the prepatch issues even though they know this doesn't excuse having them in the first place. A 14 old game that is this complex is bound to have some issues, however.
• The expansion launch is just the flick of a switch because prepatch puts all the data into the player's computer beforehand.
• The work that the team has done in the past few weeks is to assure that Monday and Tuesday go as smooth as possible.

Mail Esports Interview on Wow's Maturing Storyline
Mail Esports interviews Gary Platner and Terran Gregory on WoW's evolving story.

• Landmark storytelling games were not out yet when WoW launched in 2004.
• World of Warcraft storytelling inspirations are much different now than in the past.
• Vanilla storytelling was much more of a hyperbolic fantasy, comic book-esque story. This is what people gravitated towards during that time.
• Nowadays, audience sensibilities have gravitated to a more thoughtful, compelling narrative. Blizzard has followed suit and is starting to tell more stories like this in WoW.
• WoW is still finding new players all the time. Some of them weren't even alive when the game was released.
• Gregory sees some of the younger generation embracing WoW on Twitch and loves it.
• The WoW demographic also showcases a lot of parents and older generations.
• The storytelling has matured with the audience.
• Much like successful daytime soap opera, Wow has adopted the practice that for every character that goes out, one gets weaved in, but you can't do them all at the same time.
• Garrosh Hellscream was the first example of a character that saw a full ark through expansions. Community engagement shifts these narratives as well.
• Every quest in the game has a unique name, and it's sometimes a monumental task to think of a new name for a quest nowadays that isn't taken already.
• The team decided to go with the story of Battle for Azeroth because they wanted something a little more personal and emotional after Legion.
• The team wants to focus on the people involved in the war and progressing them as characters.
• Old Soldier was the first high-fidelity CGI cinematic released outside of being an expansion introduction. They had an opportunity to make a second and it seemed right to do so.
• The team knew that Old Soldier would connect well because a lot of players would be feeling like Saurfang at this point.
• The passion people have for Wow is what has kept it popular all of these years, and it's this passion that will keep it going for many years to come.

Riot - Ghostcrawler Moves to Head of Creative Development
Ghostcrawler has moved from being Lead Designer on League of Legends to Head of Creative Development at Riot. They are continuing to work on other games.

In an interview with Variety Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill asked what the future of MMOs looked like. "I think we have a view, others have a view, players have a view. World of Warcraft continues to be a dominating game. There is a really good argument that going head-to-head with ‘WoW’ may not be the best move, but who knows. We’re exploring a lot of stuff, thinking about a lot of stuff."

Hello friends,
I wanted to let you all know that I moved off the League of Legends team a few weeks ago to take on an expanded role. I am still very much at Riot, but I am no longer the lead designer on League. The new lead designer is Andrei “Meddler” Van Roon.

My new position at Riot is head of creative development. We don’t typically make a big deal about titles at Riot, however, I plan on still keeping up an active conversation with you all, so I wanted to explain a little bit about what this role means so you’ll have some insight into the kinds of topics I’ll be most effective at discussing.

We’ve been up front that we want to put the S in Riot Games, and I am helping with that effort. In addition, we have been taking Runeterra as a world more seriously, as you’ve probably realized with the release of the Ryze CG and the world map. While telling stories is really important to us (and I hope many of you), there is a limit to the kinds of stories we can tell in League of Legends without getting in the way of a competitive, multiplayer game. So, many of our stories will have to come through other mediums, and of course that possibly includes other games.

I look forward to all of the “GC was kicked upstairs where he can’t do much harm to LoL” memes. Let me know if I can help you with those in any way.

League of Legends is in great hands, arguably even better hands. I know it’s hard sometimes as players to have a full appreciation for how many people collaborate to make League happen. League development is very much a team effort (a large team effort), and it’s almost impossible to detect the influence of any single contributor, even a lead designer. The direction for League comes from a leadership team, to which Meddler is a great addition. He has been working on League longer than I have, and he knows all of the nuance, weird rules, and “tribal knowledge” of League design better than I do. He has a long memory of things we tried and why they worked or didn’t. He knows where the bodies are buried. I’ll also still be Meddler’s boss, so if he disappoints you, just let me know and I’ll take care of things. In all seriousness, I wouldn’t be able to step away if the design team on League wasn’t so strong.

I’ll still be out there playing the game with you, and I promised the development team that I’d always let them know what I think, by posting on Reddit of course. I’ll keep an eye on Boards as well (and more attention to the lore Boards now), but the easiest way to reach me is probably on Twitter at Ghostcrawler.

In keeping with my reputation of buffing frost mages, Meddler promised to take good care of Lissandra.

Fan Art - No Glory TV Spot
Gen Kim combined some cinematics to create a TV Spot.

This Week in WoW History
We're taking a look back at old MMO-Champion posts and World of Warcraft news that occurred during this time in previous years.

Timeless Isle Vendors
The Timeless Isle was an addition in Patch 5.4, and brought some new end-game content. The vendors in this zone accept Timeless Coin as currency, and after a few iterations some cool items were added. The Reins of the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent mount is still purchasable for 100,000 Timeless Coins. Also, the Censer of Eternal Glory can be used to collect the secondary PvP currency.

The Burdens of Shaohao
This five part series tells the story of Emperor Shaohao, and sets the story of the Mists of Pandaria. After the emperor fights doubt, despair, fear, and anger, he recognizes that his people have succumbed to the same emotions. The emperor must make a sacrifice for the good of his people, if he wants them to survive the sundering.

World of Warcraft 10th Anniversary
In preparation to the 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft, there was a blue post revealing some of the content players will get to experience. Molten Core, Tarren Mill and Southshore PvP are iconic Vanilla experiences. To remember some of the earliest parts of the game, these would make a return in the form of a 40-player Raid Finder for Molten Core, and a Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battleground

Legion Confirmed
World of Warcraft: Legion was unveiled at Gamescom in 2015. The cinematic teaser showed Gul’dan in the Tomb of Sargeras, releasing a foe we have not faced in a long time. During the event some of the major additions of the expansion were also revealed. A new Hero Class, the new continent, artifact weapons, and order halls. Some of the key allies and villains were also mentioned.

Infernal Mounts
The Infernal Mounts model was added to the game files in 2016. Two of these color variants were used in Legion as rewards from Nighthold Heroic and Mythic. The Frostshard Infernal was added in the Battle for Azeroth Pre-Patch as a reward for the No Stable Big Enough achievement. The Coldflame and Flarecore Infernal recolors have not been used yet, and could potentially be used in the future.

Demon Hunter
The new Hero Class announced at Gamescom was the Demon Hunter. This new class would have two specializations, Havoc and Vengeance. This is the only class in the game with only two specializations, with one being DPS and the other tank.

[Piplupzero]

Did they really just try and compare the burning of teldrassil to the red wedding. The Red Wedding was completely in line with Tywins motivations and what we knew of the character. Attacking and burning teldrassil was completely out of character for half the races present there. Like the tauren druids having a massive bloodthirst for malfurion? Come on.

Also "we've now started making thoughtful narratives because thats what people want these days." lets ignore the fact that people who enjoy those things didnt suddenly pop into existence overnight, why do these feel like some of the storylines with the least thought put into them in recent memory. Characters drive story, what you want to happen real bad shouldn't dictate character actions because it devalues any development you attempt. On one hand you tell us sylvanas loves her people and would do anything to protect them then on the other you have her gunning down half of them for daring to show up to event she herself put her blessing behind. Now sylvanas is worthless as a character, sure we can't predict what shes going to do but thats because you've shown anything shes done in the past has no development on the character as she stands today. Next week she might retire and open a bakery and sell tiger loafs to the golden lotus. Shes never expressed a desire to do that before but she also never expressed a desire to gun down her own people for doing something she told them to do but here we are.

[TomLike]

Did they really just try and compare the burning of teldrassil to the red wedding. The Red Wedding was completely in line with Tywins motivations and what we knew of the character. Attacking and burning teldrassil was completely out of character for half the races present there. Like the tauren druids having a massive bloodthirst for malfurion? Come on.

Not gonna adress the hole comment but what i am going to do is use this as an example .
Please research things before you speak and say stuff , since Horde druids were sent to Silithus to help heal the dmg that Sargeras made with his sword. Since Sylvanas knew they wouldnt be ok with her plans. Thats why they all met at the crossroads and only Saurfang and Nathanos knew about her plans.

[killbill]

Did they really just try and compare the burning of teldrassil to the red wedding. The Red Wedding was completely in line with Tywins motivations and what we knew of the character. Attacking and burning teldrassil was completely out of character for half the races present there. Like the tauren druids having a massive bloodthirst for malfurion? Come on.

Druids killing other druids because of factions differences really does not make any sense. There is a quest for horde druids to kill aquatic druids that are trying to destroy sinking azurite barrels.

[Emerya]

Druids killing other druids because of factions differences really does not make any sense. There is a quest for horde druids to kill aquatic druids that are trying to destroy sinking azurite barrels.

Yeah, that was my biggest issue with the questline on the horde side since I first did it on a druid. I understand it's not really practical to have a separate quest chain for one class but it still didn't feel right at all.

[morph4037]

Comparing the Burning of Teldrassil to the Red Wedding...the fuck?

Its way to early for me to even try to comprehend that shit.

[killbill]

Yeah, that was my biggest issue with the questline on the horde side since I first did it on a druid. I understand it's not really practical to have a separate quest chain for one class but it still didn't feel right at all.

That's exactly how I feel too. I don't care about the burning of Teldrasil, that is war, but druids would never participate in this kind of war. A lot of thing does not make sense especially after Legion invasion, heroes (of same class) cast away differences and work together, now suddenly they kill each other. They even swear their allegiance to their class leader already.

I don't have druid screeenshot, but I have my pally's sc.
Paladin oath.

[Aesahaettr]

The goal is to make each prepatch deeper and more memorable and act as a rallying cry to come re experience this world.
The team wants this prepatch to be something that is reflected upon with nostalgia years down the road.

Well they kind of failed there.

It's a perfectly serviceable pre-patch, it fills in the gaps from Legion to BfA, but it's note exactly memorable. In all honesty the only two pre-patches I can really recall is WotLKs, which was wonderful with the zombie mechanic (at least until people QQd because they couldn't check the AH) and the plagueland grind, and the Legion pre patch, which was incredible fun tearing across the landscape to kill demons in the invasions.

I can vaguely recall Cata, as it had some elemental invasions in cities, but I can't clearly recall MoPs or WoD's. BfA's will be joining the latter.

[Deleted]

Every MMO I've seen try to compete with WoW has failed on the basics:
- No anime
- Don't try to look realistic

[Ddps]

Ion sounds very disconnected from his fanbase, comparing WoW to GoT is some delusion. Also, you cant have people like Saurafang and Zappyboi be 100% about honor, and do all these unhonarable things, and still try and be like "but my honor, jk lets just do what you said"

God, I love this game, but I swear this expansion feels like the the most disconnected from the fanbase. Its like they took the advice "Dont listen to them, just do you" and ran with it this entire expansion. The very first WoW expansion, im not hyped for, I dont care for, and this gut feeling we are going down the wrong road.

[Kgmck177]

According to "The Dictates of Poetics", by T'Hain of Vulcan, a characters actions must flow, inexorably, from his or her established traits. In short, learn to tell a goddamn story before making such ridiculous claims, Blizzard.

[Eggroll]

Yeah, that was my biggest issue with the questline on the horde side since I first did it on a druid. I understand it's not really practical to have a separate quest chain for one class but it still didn't feel right at all.

Yeah, no serious druid would do that, nor would they allow Sylvanas to try and kill Malfurion.

You know what's even worse than that: The nelf captain, Delaryn Summermoon, who was killed at the burning of Teldrassil is giving out world quests after that... Really? Why am I the only one that seems to be bothered by that... Attention to detail doesn't seem en vogue at Blizzard or anywhere else anymore

I am too old school.

[Nozuka]

Comparing the Burning of Teldrassil to the Red Wedding...the fuck?

Its way to early for me to even try to comprehend that shit.

I think he meant that it was shocking like the red wedding, because noone expected it to happen.

The only problem is: they announced it way too early.
I never read spoilers, but somehow it was impossible not to know about this.
So it was sadly not shocking while playing..

[Quaade]

Someone please explain to me how attacking civilians is pragmatic?

It only opens up for the enemy to attack yours and guarentees no one will ever surrender, as they might get killed anyway.

I can easily see the ruthless in this, i have great difficulty finding the pragmatic aspect of it though.

[Antero]

According to "The Dictates of Poetics", by T'Hain of Vulcan, a characters actions must flow, inexorably, from his or her established traits. In short, learn to tell a goddamn story before making such ridiculous claims, Blizzard.

did you just quote a fictional quote from a fictional book from a fictional tv show? LOL!

[Aquinan]

You know what's even worse than that: The nelf captain, Delaryn Summermoon, who was killed at the burning of Teldrassil is giving out world quests after that... Really?

That was probably some quest designer just looking up the NPC commander for the area and assigning it without looking @ the storyboard.

did you just quote a fictional quote from a fictional book from a fictional tv show? LOL!

Doesn't mean it isn't true :P

[Casperite]

Well they kind of failed there.

It's a perfectly serviceable pre-patch, it fills in the gaps from Legion to BfA, but it's note exactly memorable. In all honesty the only two pre-patches I can really recall is WotLKs, which was wonderful with the zombie mechanic (at least until people QQd because they couldn't check the AH) and the plagueland grind, and the Legion pre patch, which was incredible fun tearing across the landscape to kill demons in the invasions.

I can vaguely recall Cata, as it had some elemental invasions in cities, but I can't clearly recall MoPs or WoD's. BfA's will be joining the latter.

You are going to honestly say burning of teldrisil is not memorable? You must be trolling. Look at all the posts and high emotions from this prepatch. It will definitely be memorable.

[Aquinan]

Whats the countdown for?

......



xpack release day.....

[off3nc3]

Whats the countdown for?

For the worst expansion to date , by the looks of it.

[Sagnar]

For the worst expansion to date , by the looks of it.

We will see.

I'm still waiting for classic anyway. BfA will hopefully fill the waiting gap.