Hello everyone! Here are this week’s development notes for the Dragonflight Pre-Expansion PTR.
CLASSES- NEW TALENT SYSTEM
DEATH KNIGHT
Frost
Frost tree has been updated to a new layout to fix dependency issues, create more depth in choice, as well as new and reworked talents. - Unleashed Frenzy – Now grants the Strength buff when any Runic Power ability damages an enemy.
- Improved Frost Strike and Runic Command – Swapped positions on the tree.
- Glacial Advance – Removed the cooldown. Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.
- Frostscythe – Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.
- Horn of Winter – Now Frost only and placed directly after Improved Obliterate.
- Improved Killing Machine renamed to Frostreaper and has a new icon.
- Enduring Strength – Now available directly after Pillar of Frost and has a new icon.
- Frostwhelp’s Aid – Now available directly after Pillar of Frost.
- Coldheart – No longer a choice node with Inexorable Assault. Moved to the right side of the tree below Improved Rime.
- Inexorable Assault – No longer a choice node with Cold Heart. Moved below Frostreaper on the left side of the tree.
- Obliteration – No longer a choice node with Icecap.
- Icecap – Pillar of Frost cooldown reduction from Frost Strike/Frost Scythe/Obliterate critical hits reduced to 2 seconds (was 4 seconds). Now available directly after Frostwhelp’s Aid or Enduring Strength.
- Empower Rune Weapon – Now properly grants 1 charge if you already know the spell from the core tree.
- Everfrost – Now directly available after Gathering Storm and should no longer be able to be taken without knowing Remorseless Winter. Reduced to a 1 rank node (was 2).
- Might of the Frozen Wastes – Fixed a bug that was causing this to not properly apply while a 2-hander was equipped. Now available directly after Murderous Efficiency.
- New Talent: Shattering Strike – When Frost Strike damages an enemy with 5 stacks of Razorice it will consume them to deal an additional 60% damage. Available directly after Icecap.
- Avalanche – This has been updated to also apply Razorice to your targets if Howling Blast is empowered by Rime. No longer a choice node with Frozen Pulse, and now available directly after Icecap.
- Frozen Pulse has been removed.
- New Talent: Icebreaker – When empowered by Rime, Howling Blast deals 30/60% increased damage to your primary target. Available directly after Empower Rune Weapon and Gathering Storm.
DRUID - Balance
Eclipses no longer occur in alternation or reduce the cast times of Wrath or Starfire. - Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Arcane spells by 15%.
- Solar Eclipse now increases the damage of your Nature spells by 15%.
- Shooting Stars has an increased chance to occur and now has a chance to trigger from Stellar Flare damage.
- Mastery: Total Eclipse has been removed.
- New Mastery: Astral Invocation – Your Nature spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Sunfire. Your Arcane spells deal increased damage to targets affected by Moonfire.
EVOKER - Empowered spell cast bar visual has been updated.
- Devastation
All healing spells increased by 15%. - Power Swell – Increases Essence regeneration by 100% (was 50%).
- Burnout has been redesigned – Fire Breath damage has an 8/16% chance to cause your next Living Flame to be instant cast.
Preservation - All damage spells increased by 15%.
- Spiritbloom’s healing increased by 30%. Targeting has been cleaned up and should more consistently heal low health targets.
HUNTER - General
Hunters can now tame a new pet type: Lesser Dragonkin.
Lesser Dragonkin are a Ferocity pet. - Lesser Dragonkin have a new pet family ability, Shimmering Scales – Reduces your pet’s magic damage taken by 70% for 8 seconds, on a 90 second cooldown.
- Cloud Serpents have had their pet family changed from Serpents to Lesser Dragonkin, but the ability to tame Cloud Serpents has not been changed in any way.
- Lesser Dragonkin taming is currently planned to be a reward from the Valdrakken faction.
- Lesser Dragonkin includes creatures like the new Hornswogs from Dragonflight, or the Feathered Drakes in Ardenweald, or even some of the Faerie Dragons in places like Feralas.
Wing Clip Focus cost reduced by 10. This was a rank 2 upgrade that was incorrectly not baked into Wing Clip.
Class Tree - Improved Traps and Rejuvenating Wind should actually have their places swapped.
- Concussive Shot will now replace Wing Clip, and no longer requires a ranged weapon.
- Fortitude of the Bear should have all of its interactions properly setup now with Command Pet, Tenacity pets, as well as Lone Wolf Marksmanship Hunters.
MONK - Class Tree
Developers’ note: Additional connections have been made in several areas to allow more free-form navigation of the talent tree as a whole. We’ve enjoyed seeing your creative builds, and look forward to seeing what you can do with the increased connectivity. - Vivacious Vivification now grants an instant Vivify once every 10 seconds.
Developers’ note: We really liked the idea of pushing Vivify as a more responsive heal, but Vivacious Vivification as a 100%, always-on reduction to the cast time of Vivify was reducing the decision space for the class as a whole and completely obsoleting Soothing Mist in particular. With this change, we hope to strike a balance of allowing players a skill-testing emergency heal they’re excited to invest into, while still making more sustained with multiple Vivifies a more significant investment that will encourage using the full breadth of the toolkit.
Expel Harm moved back to baseline for all Monks.
- Developers’ note: The prior positioning of Expel Harm was too restrictive and forced the selection of other abilities.
Heavy Air replaced with Vigorous Expulsion.
- Developers’ note: While we were excited about offering additional range and control of the battlefield, player feedback was clear that this talent didn’t feel valuable enough to invest in.
Vigorous Expulsion increases the healing of Expel Harm by 5% and the critical strike chance of Expel Harm by 15%.
Strength of Spirit increases the healing of Expel Harm by up to 200% based on current maximum health. Moved to the Class Tree from Brewmaster.
Profound Rebuttal increases the critical healing of Expel Harm by 50%.
- Developers’ note: With Expel Harm once again baseline, we’ve taken the opportunity to offer improvements to the ability throughout the tree.
Disable has been moved to Row 2.
Paralysis has been moved to Row 3.
Paralysis Rank 2 has been moved to Row 4.
- Developers’ note: Players offered feedback that Paralysis and its upgrade didn’t feel optional even in situations where they would not be useful, so we’ve rearranged the tree to increase overall choice.
White Tiger Statue damage has been reduced by 75%.
- Developers’ note: White Tiger Statue is intended to be a solid contributor, but was doing a little too well in some situations. We continue to tweak value to find this cat a new home.
Windwalker - Multiple talents have been updated to address issues.
- Touch of the Tiger, Flashing Fists, and Hardened Soles now correctly persist through zone transfer.
- Shadowboxing Treads, Jade Ignition, Xuen’s Bond, Bone Dust Brew, Attenuation, Bone Marrow Hops, Last Emperor’s Capacitor, Keefer’s Skyreach, Xuen’s Battlegear, and Way of the Fae now again function outside the Shadowlands.
- Glory of the Dawn has been updated to scale with the Monk’s attack power, rather than using a flat value
- Open Palm Strikes has been converted to a percentage bonus to Fists of Fury Damage.
- Meridian Strikes has been converted to a percentage bonus to Touch of Death.
- Resolved an issue where Power Strikes was not correctly re-applying the bonus effect.
Developers’ note: We appreciate the Windwalker community’s patience with these technical issues and apologize for the delay in addressing them.
Monitoring the interaction between Shadowboxing Treads and Mark of the Crane.
- Developers’ note: The interaction between Shadowboxing Treads and Mark of the Crane is very powerful, and we’re paying close attention to the impact it has on Windwalker AOE gameplay and targeting flow when engaging groups of enemies. We’ve reduced the damage provided by talented Shadowboxing Treads in this build, but Mark of the Crane applications currently remain.
PALADIN - Holy
New Talent: Inflorescence of the Sunwell – Infusion of Light has 1 additional charge, reduces the cost of Flash of Light by an additional 30%, and has a 30% chance to generate an additional Holy Power from Holy Light. - New Talent: Divine Insight – Holy Shock’s healing and damage is increased by 5%.
- New Talent: Unwavering Spirit – The cooldown of Aura Mastery is reduced by 30 seconds.
- New Talent: Tirion’s Devotion – Lay on Hand’s cooldown is reduced by 1 second per Holy Power spent.
- New Talent: Veneration – Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Judgment critical strikes reset the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath and make it usable on any target, regardless of their health.
- New Talent: Resplendent Light – Holy Light heals up to 5 targets within 8 yards for 8% of its healing.
- New Talent: Imbued Infusions – Consuming Infusion of Light reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 second.
- New Talent: Boundless Salvation – Casting Flash of Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 0.5 seconds. Casting Holy Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 1 second.
- New Talent: Relentless Inquisitor – Spending Holy Power grants you 1% Haste per finisher for 12 seconds, stacking up to 3/5 times.
- New Talent: Empyrean Endowment – Judgment empowers your next Word of Glory to automatically activate Light of Dawn with 25% increased effectiveness. The effect can only occur every 30 seconds.
- Added connections and pathing and moved a few talents around.
- Divine Revelations - Now a 1-point node.
- Saved by the Light – Now a 1-point node.
- Protection of Tyr – Now a choice node with Unwavering Spirit.
- Moment of Compassion – Now a choice node with Resplendent Light.
- Removed Liadrin’s Fury Unleashed.
- Removed Tyr’s Munificence.
- Divine Favor moved from PvP talents to the Holy talent tree. No longer provides immunity to interrupts, now increases healing by 60% (was 40%). Cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
- Empyrean Endowment – Added functionality for Holy Paladin. Slight tooltip change for both Retribution and Holy.
- Divine Revelations – Now causes Holy Light to refund 2% max mana. Now increases the healing of Flash of Light by 10%.
- Tyr’s Deliverance – Increased radius to 20 yards (was 15 yards). Increased healing by 5% and healing bonus increased to 25% (was 20%).
- Infusion of Light is now learned baseline.
Protection - Spell Block can no longer block attacks from behind, while stunned, or while casting/channeling a spell.
- Holy Shield now requires having a shield equipped to use.
- Holy Shield will no longer allow you to block periodic spell damage.
- Holy Shield will now allow you to block creatures that deal non-physical auto attack damage, such as if a Fire Elemental melee attacks you as Fire damage.
- Holy Shield will work against attacks that deal combinations of physical and elemental damage, such as a Fire and Physical spell or attack.
- The combat log will properly report Spell Blocks from Holy Shield as blocked damage, rather than absorbed damage.
PRIEST - Class Tree
Throes of Pain – Now a 2-point talent further down in the tree. Increases Shadow Word: Pain damage by 3%/5% and returns 3/5 Insanity or 0.5%/1.0% mana. - Tithe Evasion – Now in the Class tree (was Shadow tree).
- Improved Mind Blast has been removed.
- Translucent Image – Fade reduces damage you take by 10% (was 5%).
- Dominant Mind renamed to Dominate Mind – Now an active spell as a choice against Mind Control. Mana cost changed to match Mind Control’s mana cost.
- Holy Nova – Damage and healing increased by 75%.
- Mind Blast – Cooldown reduced to 9 seconds (was 15 seconds).
- Phantasm – No longer a choice against Translucent Image.
- Twist of Fate – Fixed an issue causing Twist of Fate to not trigger.
Discipline - Balance In All Things renamed to Twilight Equilibrium.
- Aegis of Wrath – Power Word: Shield absorbs 50% additional damage but the absorb amount decays by 3% every 1 second (was 30%).
Holy - Reorganized the bottom of the tree and a copy nodes early in the tree.
- Holy Fire – Holy Fire now replaces Mind Blast for Holy Priest.
- Burning Vehemence has been redesigned – Increases the damage of Holy Fire by 25%.
- Searing Light – Increases the damage of Smite and Holy Nova by 25%/50% against targets affected by your Holy Fire (was 15%/30%).
- Resonant Words – Casting a Holy Word spell increases the healing of your next Heal or Flash Heal by 25%/50% (was 15%/30%).
- New Talent: Divine Image – When you use a Holy Word spell, you have a chance to summon an image of a Naaru at your side. For 15 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, the Naaru will cast a similar spell.
- Miracle Worker – Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify gain an additional charge.
- Spirited Litany renamed to Answered Prayers – After your Prayer of Mending heals 100 / 50 times, gain Apotheosis for 8 seconds. Does not reset the cooldown of Holy Words when triggered.
- Guardians of the Light – Tooltip updated. Guardian Spirit also grants you 100% of its effects when used on an ally.
- Desperate Times – Increases healing by 10%/20% on friendly targets below 50% (was 6%/12%).
Shadow - The Shadow tree has been reorganized.
- Dark Evangelism – Fixed a bug causing Mind Sear damage to not be increased by Dark Evangelism.
- Hallucinations – Now Baseline as Shadow.
- Dark Ascension – Now a choice node against Void Eruption. Duration increased to 20 seconds (was 18 seconds). Damage per stack increased to 5% (was 4%). No longer requires or consumes Dark Evangelism.
- Mind Spike – No longer removes damage over time effects. Critical Strike chance bonus to Mind Blast moved to Mind Melt.
- Mind Melt – The tooltip has been updated. Mind Spike reduces the cast time of your next Mind Blast by 50%, and increases its critical strike chance by 50%, stacking up to 2 times. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Derangement – Increases Mind Sear damage by 20% instead of increasing its cast speed.
- Mind Sear – Updated Mind Sear behavior for a better experience. Added extra initial tick. Now costs Insanity immediately and cancels as soon as the Priest doesn’t have enough Insanity.
- Mind Devourer – Now a 1-point node with a 15% trigger chance. The trigger effect now affects Devouring Plague or Mind Sear.
- Shadowy Apparitions – Fixed a bug that caused periodic Devouring Plague to spawn Shadowy Apparitions.
- Silence – Range changed to 40 yards to offset the loss of Silence (Rank 2).
- Damnation – Cooldown increased to 1 minute (was 45 seconds).
- Void Torrent – Cooldown increased to 1 minute (was 30 seconds). Damage increased by 25%.
- Malediction – Now a 2-point talent. Reduces the cooldown of Damnation and Void Torrent by 15 seconds/30 seconds.
- Voidform – Duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
- Void Bolt – Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds (was 9 seconds).
- Ancient Madness – Now affects Dark Ascension and Voidform. Now increases critical chance by 10%/20% for 20 seconds reducing by 0.5%/1.0% per second (was 15%/30% for 15 seconds reducing by 1%/2% per second).
- Surrender to Madness has been removed.
- Hungering Void has been removed.
- Piercing Shadows has been removed.
- Lunacy has been removed.
- Vampiric Insight renamed to Shadowy Insight – Now triggers from Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage instead of Vampiric Touch periodic damage.
SHAMAN - General
Stormkeeper, Healing Stream Totem, and Cloudburst Totem should now properly grant 2 charges of the ability when talenting into both nodes on the talent tree.
Enhancement - Swirling Maelstrom reduced to 1 stack of Maelstrom Weapon (was 2). Fire Nova interaction clarified that it is 1 stack per Fire Nova caused rather than per Fire Nova ability cast.
- Feral Lunge is now below Windfury Weapon rather than below Stormflurry.
- Windfury Totem trigger chance is now back up to 20%. This is also a rank 2 that got lost.
- Crash Lightning has had the following adjustments:
Cooldown increased to 12 seconds (was 9 seconds). - Crash Lightning’s buff from hitting 2 or more targets is now 12 seconds (was 10 seconds).
- Ice Strike can now also cause the bonus damage from Crash Lightning.
- The initial damage, as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike has been increased.
- The initial damage as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike now deals reduced damage when you are fighting more than 6 targets.
WARRIOR - Class Developer Notes
We’ve decided to remove Skull Banner, the general consensus across sources of feedback has not been particularly positive and we’ve struggled to find the right home for Skull Banner in each of the talent trees. Therefore, we’ve decided to remove it. - No other major updates, some tweaks and bug fixes as we are generally satisfied with the Warrior class tree…
- We may still switch adjust talent node positions as we move throughout the Beta and monitor feedback.
Class Tree - Cruel Strikes – Now increases Critical Strike chance by 1% and increases the critical strike damage of Execute by 5% per rank.
- Quick Thinking – Now increases Haste by 1% and your auto attack critical strikes increase your auto attack speed by 10% for 10 seconds per rank.
- Frothing Berserker: Arms Variant – Mortal Strike and Cleave have a 20% chance to immediately refund 20% of the Rage spent.
- Frothing Berserker: Fury Variant – Rampage has a 20% chance to immediately refund 20% of the Rage spent.
- Frothing Berserker: Protection Variant – Revenge has a 20% chance to immediately refund 50% of the Rage spent.
- Switched the positions of Frothing Berserker and Honed Reflexes positions to ensure the node that governs the left branch is more universally desired.
- Fast Footwork has returned to a 5% speed increase (was 10%).
Arms Developer Notes - No major updates for the Arms tree. We feel good about the tree and are working on fixing various bugs and tweaking abilities where needed.
- Deft Experience’s bonus to Rend has been integrated into Bloodborne and will have a new secondary effect in a future build.
Arms - Valor in Victory is now 1% Versatility and a 15 second reduction to the cooldown of Die by the Sword per rank.
- Critical thinking – Now increase your Critical Strike chance by 1% and Execute refunds 10% of Rage Spent per rank.
- Bloodborne – Now increases Deep Wounds, Rend and Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effects by 7.5% and Rend’s direct damage is increased by 50% per rank.
- The Strength bonus from Hurricane should now be calculated correctly.
- The Strength bonus from Test of Might should now be calculated correctly.
- Test of Might reverted to 1% Strength per 10 Rage spent (was 5% per 30 Rage).
- Fracture no longer causes the Bleed effects of Thunderous Roar to expire to lower cooldown alignment and allow Thunderous Roar to be used more freely.
- Removed Skull Banner.
- Battlelord now reduces the cost of Mortal Strike and Cleave by 10 (was 15).
- Warbreaker should again work correctly with Anger Management.
Fury Developer Notes - Cruelty has historically been a very powerful talent and its position and functionality wasn’t ideal depending on your build. So, we’ve decided to split the damage and cooldown related components. This makes pathing better for various builds and also allows us to better control the power of certain abilities.
- Made some changes to Annihilator to bring the damage and rage generation down.
- The rage generation of various abilities such as Annihilator do not synergize with Recklessness, we will be fixing this in a future update.
- We’ve done some testing internally on two-handed Annihilator builds and will update more to update on here in the future.
- No other major changes, various bug fixes and tweaks to abilities.
Fury - Dancing Blades Attack speed bonus reduced to 30% (was 50%).
- Deft Experience – Now increases Mastery by 1% and reduces the cooldown of Bloodthirst by 0.75 seconds per rank.
- Swift Strikes – Now increases Haste by 1% and Raging Blow and Annihilator generate and additional 1 Rage.
- The Strength bonus from Hurricane should now be calculated correctly.
- Removed the Rage cost from the base version of Whirlwind.
- Bloodthrist’s Bloodcraze buff duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
- Removed Skull Banner.
- Cruelty no longer grants a chance to reset charges of Raging Blow.
- Cruelty now grants 15% increased damage to Raging Blow and 5% increased damage to Annihilator.
- Wrath and Fury in addition to increasing the damage of Raging Blow by 5%, now grants a 30% chance to reset charges of Raging Blow while Enraged.
- Annihilator now grants 3 Rage per hit (was 6).
- Slaughtering Strikes increases the damage of Rampage via Annihilator by 2% (was 3% per strike).
- Slam generates 10 Rage through Storm of Swords and its damage reduced to 150% (was 200%).
- Annihilator damage reduced to 10% (was 19%).
- Bloodborne damage bonus to periodic effects reduced to 15% (was 30%).
Protection ITEMS AND REWARDS- New Toy: Seed of Renewed Souls – Embrace the spirits of the weald, transforming into your Soulshape. 5 minute cooldown. Available from Lady Muunn in Heart of the Forest.
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER- RATED SOLO SHUFFLE
In Dragonflight, we’re continuing our work on the Solo Shuffle game mode by upping the stakes and adding the ability for players to earn (or lose!) rating, similar to our Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas. In this week’s PTR and Beta build, players will be able to participate in the Rated version of Solo Shuffle. Just like in Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas, you’ll be able to earn seasonal rewards and achievements, credit towards Vicious mounts, weekly great vault progress, and Conquest. Solo Shuffle’s rules and 6-round format continue, with the addition of rating changes based off of the amount of rounds each player has won during the match. We’ll be monitoring and adjusting matchmaking throughout beta to facilitate testing.
Unique to this Rated game mode, players will have a rating tracked for each of their character’s specializations. Players will select which of their specialization to queue with, and participate in specialization-based ladders and end of season rewards. Players will also notice that we’ve created a minimum item level feature for Rated Solo Shuffle specifically, but we do not have it currently set to our final value for Season 1 of Dragonflight.
We’re extremely appreciative of all the community feedback we received from our brawl version of Solo Shuffle, please continue to share your thoughts with us in our forums or @WarcraftDevs on twitter. Please keep an eye out for future Play with the Blues events focusing on Solo Shuffle on Beta.
CLASSES - HUNTER
Interlope – Now available for all Hunter specializations (was Beast Mastery only). - Diamond Ice – Now available for all Hunter specializations (was Survival only).
- Beast Mastery
Kindred Beasts redesigned to work with Tenacity Pet’s new ability, Fortitude of the Bear – While using a Tenacity pet: Command Pet’s unique ability cooldown reduced by 50% and allies within 20 yards of your pet gain 10% increased maximum health for 10 seconds.
MONK - Grapple Weapon – Now available for Brewmaster (was Mistweaver and Windwalker only).
- Mighty Ox Kick – Now available for all Monk specializations (was Brewmaster only).
- Dematerialize – Now available for Brewmaster (was was Mistweaver only).
- Alpha Tiger – Now grants 20% Haste (was 30%) after using Tiger Palm. Available for all Monk specializations (was Windwalker only).
- Wind Waker – Now available for Brewmaster (was Windwalker only).
PALADIN - Hallowed Ground – Now available for Retribution (Holy and Protection only).
- Aura of Reckoning – Now available for all Paladin specializations (was Retribution only). For Holy Paladins: The spells empowers your next Judgement once you get to 50 stacks.
- Vengeance Aura – Now available for all Paladin specializations (was Retribution only).
- Divine Favor – Removed from PvP talents and moved into the talent tree.
ROGUE - Dagger in the Dark – Now available for all Rogue specializations (was Subtlety only).
Each second while Stealth is active, nearby enemies within 10 yards (was 12 yards) take an additional 5% damage from your next Shadowstrike or Ambush for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 8 times (was 10 times).
Dagger in the Dark increases Shadowstrike damage for Subtlety, and Ambush damage for Assassination and Outlaw.
WARLOCK - Call Observer – Now available for all Warlock specializations (was Demonology only).
- Bonds of Fel – Now available for all Warlock specializations (was Destruction only).
WARRIOR - Rebound – Reflected spells now cause 50% extra damage back to the attacker (was 33%). Now available for all Warrior specializations (was Protection only).
- Battle Trance has been redesigned – You go into a trance causing you to regenerate 3% of your health and generate 3 Rage every 3 seconds for 18 seconds after using Raging Blow twice in a row on a target or striking a target with Annihilator 8 times. Striking a new target with Raging Blow or Annihilator will cancel this effect.
- Enduring Rage redesigned to also work with Annihilator:
Raging Blow functionality – Increases the duration of your Enrage effect by 1 second, and your Raging Blows extend the duration of your Enrage by 1.5 seconds. - Annihilator functionality – Increases the duration of your Enrage effect by 1 second, and your Annihilator damage extends the duration of your Enrage by 0.5 seconds.
USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY- NEW HUD UI
UI art updates:
Experience and Reputation bars - Wyvern action bar art for Horde players
Edit Mode
- PvP Arena Frames
- Loot Frame
- Help tips are added to the frame as a toggle for more information.
