Patch 9.1.0 Chains of Domination PTR Notes

[chaud]

Patch 9.1.0 Chains of Domination PTR Notes

Classes

• Druid
  
  • Balance
    
    • New Moon (Talent) now has 20 second recharge (was 25 seconds).
    • Solstice (Talent) now causes Shooting Stars to fall 200% more often (was 300%).
    • Stellar Drift (Talent) has been redesigned – Starfall damage increased by 25% and allows you to cast while moving while Starfall is active, but it has a 15 second cooldown.
    • The free Starfall from Oneth’s Clear Vision (Runecarving Power) ignores the Stellar Drift (Talent) Starfall cooldown.
    • Balance of All Things (Runecarving Power) now grants 24% increased critical strike chance (was 40%) and decreases by 3% every 1 second (was 8% every 1 second).
• Mage
  
  • Fire
    
    • Flamestrike damage reduced by 10%.
    • Flame Patch (Talent) damage reduced by 10%.
    • Kindling (Talent) cooldown reduction for Combustion reduced to 1 second (was 1.5 seconds).
    • Infernal Cascade (Conduit) Fire damage bonus reduced by 20%.
• Priest
  
  • Discipline
    
    • Spirit Shell (Talent) cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 60 seconds).
  • Holy
    
    • Symbol of Hope has been redesigned – Bolster the morale of party or raid members within 40 yards. They each recover 60 seconds of cooldown on a major defensive ability, and they regain 12% of their missing mana over 5 seconds.
  • Shadow
    
    • Dissonant Echoes (Conduit) now grants 20% increased Void Bolt damage (was 35%).
• Rogue
  
  • The shield from Cloaked in Shadows (Conduit) is now 50% larger, lasts for 4 seconds (previously had no duration) and no longer decays while the Rogue is out of stealth.
• Warlock
  
  • Dark Pact’s (Talent) additional absorb shield has been increased by 216%.
  • Destruction
    
    • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 10%.
  • Affliction
    
    • Malefic Rapture damage reduced by 18%.
    • Agony damage increased by 20%.
    • Shadow Embrace now lasts 16 seconds (was 12 seconds) and can now only be applied to 1 target at a time.
    • Focused Malignancy (Conduit) effectiveness reduced by 53%.
    • Sacrolash’s Dark Strike (Runecarving Power) has been redesigned – Corruption damage is increased by 25% (was 15%), and each time Corruption deals damage, it extends the duration of all your Curses active on the target by 2 seconds (was Corrupted targets movement speed slowed by 50%).

COVENANTS

• New Covenant Campaign Chapters.
• 40 new Renown levels.
• Soulbinds
  
  • New Soulbind Tiers
    
    • All existing Soulbinds now have 4 new rows:
      
      • 3 new Conduit slots (1 Potency, 1 Endurance, and 1 Finesse)
      • 2 new Traits
      • 1 Capper Trait
  • Kyrian
    
    • Soulsteel Clamps (Forgelite Prime Mikanikos) now reduces duration of stun and incapacitate effects by 20% (was 30%).
    • Sparkling Driftglobe Core (Forgelite Prime Mikanikos) cooldown increased to 1 minute (was 45 seconds) and now triggers at 30% health (was 35%).
  • Necrolord
    
    • Sulfuric Emission (Emeni) fear duration reduced to 3.5 seconds (was 4.5 seconds).
  • Venthyr
    
    • Familiar Predicaments (Nadjia the Mistblade) now reduces incoming interrupt, snare and root effects by 20% (was 25%).

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS

• New Raid: Sanctum of Domination
  
  • The following encounters will be available for testing on April 16:
    
    • Tarragrue
    • Guardian of the First Ones

ITEMS AND REWARDS

• The Empyreal Ordnance trinket now puts other on-use trinkets on a 40 second cooldown when used (was 20 seconds).

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• Death Knight
  
  • Frost
    
    • New PvP Talent: Shroud of Winter.
    • Heartstop Aura (PvP Talent) has been removed.
• Mage
  
  • Kleptomania (PvP Talent) is now Arcane only.
  • Dampened Magic (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • Arcane
    
    • New PvP Talent: Arcanosphere.
    • Arcane Blast now deals 20% more damage in PvP combat.
  • Fire
    
    • New PvP Talent: Ring of Fire.
    • Controlled Burn (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Ignite deals 100% more damage while Combustion is not active.
    • World in Flames (PvP Talent) now causes Flamestrike to reduce the cast time of Flamestrike by 50% (was 1.25 seconds) and increases its damage by 30% for 3 seconds (was 20% permanently).
  • Frost
    
    • New PvP Talent: Ice Wall.
    • Frostbolt now deals 100% more damage in PvP combat (was 15%).
    • Deep Shatter (PvP Talent) now increases the damage of Frostbolt by 75% on Frozen targets (was 150%).
    • Burst of Cold (PvP Talent) now increases the damage of Cone of Cold by 600% (was 400%).
• Monk
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • New PvP Talent: Peaceweaver.
    • New PvP Talent: Dematerialize.
    • New PvP Talent: Thunderous Tea.
    • Counteract Magic (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Each hostile Magic effect removed from a target increases the healing they receive from you by 2% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 10 times.
    • Refreshing Breeze (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Healing done by Soothing Mist increases the healing of the next Expel Harm on the target during the channel, and causes it to dispel 1 Magic, Poison, or Disease effect.
    • Eminence (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Transcendence: Transfer can now be cast while stunned and its cooldown is decreased by 15 seconds if it is cast while not stunned.
    • Surging Mist (PvP Talent) has been removed.
• Priest
  
  • New PvP Talent: Improved Mass Dispel.
  • Shadow
    
    • Lasting Plague (PvP Talent) has been removed.
• Rogue
  
  • Mark of the Master Assassin (Runecarving Power) duration has been reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
  • Assassination
    
    • New PvP Talent: Hemotoxin.
    • Neurotoxin (PvP Talent) has been removed.
• Warlock
  
  • New PvP Talent: Shadow Rift.
  • Affliction
    
    • Soul Shatter (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • Demonology
    
    • New PvP Talent: Fel Obelisk.
    • Call Fel Lord (PvP Talent) now deals 200% of the caster’s Spell Power per swing (was 5% of target’s maximum health). Cooldown of the ability increased to 2 minutes (was 1.5 minutes).
    • Singe Magic (PvP Talent) has been removed.
  • Destruction
    
    • New PvP Talent: Bonds of Fel.
    • Chaos Bolt now deals 40% more damage in PvP combat (was 15%).
    • Focused Chaos (PvP Talent) has been removed.

RUNECARVING

• New Runecarving Powers
  
  • Death Knight, Druid, Warrior and Mage have new powers available in this PTR build.
• Some existing powers have been updated. See the Classes sections for details.

THE MAW

• New Zone: Korthia
  
  • Archivist and Dreadlord Questlines
  • Visitor Dailies
• New: Maw Assaults
• New: Tormentors of Torghast

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Oh I just can't wait! New Conduit. Glorious news! I am drinking all night literally cause of this.

[msdos]

They've given up on DKs in PVP lmao.

[Chromell]

I could see that nerf to Kindling from day 1 of Shadowlands, but it's still depressing to see it happen.

[Kokolums]

The new broker, dreadlord, maw beast art, etc. mightbe the UGLIEST stuff the art team have ever come up with. That just looks BAD.

[Kilmer]

Blizzard just KILL the FIRE MAGE for PVE Content.
Just it.

SIMPLE, RIDICULOUS.

[Stardrift]

The new broker, dreadlord, maw beast art, etc. mightbe the UGLIEST stuff the art team have ever come up with. That just looks BAD.

What's wrong with it?

[Kahyl]

Wow. Talk about light patch notes and changes on the first iteration. Here's hoping they add FAR more in the following builds.

[TheFirstOnes]

The new broker, dreadlord, maw beast art, etc. mightbe the UGLIEST stuff the art team have ever come up with. That just looks BAD.

I'll take whatever Meth you're using...

[LemonDemonGirl]

The Pirate Dragon is pretty cool, and that Broker Cat

[Soon-TM]

Glad to see some buffs to arcane, especially in PvP.

[Nosnogard]

I'm not sure why they want to nerf the warlocks Sarcolash Runecarving. It was fine in all of Legion (Which is what it was based on) but now it needs a nerf? I'm looking at it as a nerf because I don't think I've seen many who said that it was a bad Runecarving for PvP and kiting in PvE

[Cosmic Janitor]

Sad to see the only creative additions to the game's classes being pvp talents..

[Wuusah]

only whiners on mmo-champ these days... I'm excited for the patch. This is a very good first iteration for a PTR patch.

[Coldkil]

Way too soon to say anything. They basically just said "we're expanding covenant-related systems" and started adjusting classes. I expect some of the nerfs to be reduced because it's way to hard on affli and fire imho. They really don't need the huge hammer, it's more other specs in dire need of buffs because they're next to unpalayable.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Wow. Talk about light patch notes and changes on the first iteration. Here's hoping they add FAR more in the following builds.

Its the very first PTR notes for 9.1 Just wait a bit for more updates

[Cosmic Janitor]

Way too soon to say anything. They basically just said "we're expanding covenant-related systems" and started adjusting classes. I expect some of the nerfs to be reduced because it's way to hard on affli and fire imho. They really don't need the huge hammer, it's more other specs in dire need of buffs because they're next to unpalayable.

Frankly the reason fire outclasses other specs isn't even adressed here again, it's mostly the mobility that counters the asinine encounter design of the devs, the stacking nature of scaling because of the overreliance on one cooldown and scaling against large pulls, all subjects that just show the fundamental flaw in their dungeon/raid/itemization design.

[Lollis]

Way too soon to say anything. They basically just said "we're expanding covenant-related systems" and started adjusting classes. I expect some of the nerfs to be reduced because it's way to hard on affli and fire imho. They really don't need the huge hammer, it's more other specs in dire need of buffs because they're next to unpalayable.

As Fire Mage, i'd rather that they keep these nerfs and buff everything else to compensate. Our AoE and our Combustion was broken, everyone knew that, but the way they have just gone about nerfing Combustion via Infernal Cascade AND Kindling and doing nothing to compensate is just stupid. Quick sims suggest it to be around 8% nerf just to single target alone.

How they should have done it:

Nerf Fireblast damage, Buff Fireball damage, Buff ignite damage, Nerf Infernal Cascade, Nerf Kindling, Nerf Flamestrike dmg, Nerf Flame Patch dmg, Reduce Flamestrike cast time.

[Coldkil]

As Fire Mage, i'd rather that they keep these nerfs and buff everything else to compensate. Our AoE and our Combustion was broken, everyone knew that, but the way they have just gone about nerfing Combustion via Infernal Cascade AND Kindling and doing nothing to compensate is just stupid. Quick sims suggest it to be around 8% nerf just to single target alone.

How they should have done it:

Nerf Fireblast damage, Buff Fireball damage, Buff ignite damage, Nerf Infernal Cascade, Nerf Kindling, Nerf Flamestrike dmg, Nerf Flame Patch dmg, Reduce Flamestrike cast time.

Yeah, i'm not a mage expert but to me it doesn't seem they're OP - it's more like their toolkit is very suited for a plethora of situations, so they shine in multiple scenarios. They can adjust numbers to make them more/les effective in some places, but in the end they may be strong, but some specs are literally down the drain and imho it's more important to fix those than to flat nerf Fire/Affli.

- - - Updated - - -

Frankly the reason fire outclasses other specs isn't even adressed here again, it's mostly the mobility that counters the asinine encounter design of the devs, the stacking nature of scaling because of the overreliance on one cooldown and scaling against large pulls, all subjects that just show the fundamental flaw in their dungeon/raid/itemization design.

Exactly. Either the dungeon/raid design changes and turns in favour of someone else, or they change classes toolkits so they can adapt better to their combat/encounter design. Most of the balance actually comes from this.

[Masternap]

Are the PvP notes a joke? This changes absolutely nothing about the burst, but instead they nerf things like Devouring Plague for Shadows which does barely any damage. Is everyone at Blizzard high?