We’re testing some adjustments to underperforming classes that we intend to make with weekly resets (on 13 January in this region).
Classes
Death Knight
Blood
Bone Shield grants armor equal to 70% of Strength (was 50%).
Frost
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Mage
Frost
All damage abilities increased by 9%.
Monk
Windwalker
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Brewmaster
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Rogue
Assassination
All damage abilities increased by 8%.
Warrior
Fury
All damage abilities increased by 8%, except for Bladestorm and Dragon Roar.
Meat Cleaver talent now increases Whirlwind’s damage by 25% (was 30%).
PVP
Players will now drop PvP flags if they activate Podtender (including Temple of Kotmogu orbs).
Note: this fix will be applied to the live game as soon as possible, before the weekly reset.
As always, the changes above (with the exception of the Podtender fix) are a work in progress, and may differ before they go live. We’ll have the final tuning noted in our Hotfixes Update post next week.
We’re testing some adjustments to underperforming classes that we intend to make with weekly resets (on January 12 in this region).
Classes
Death Knight
Blood
Bone Shield grants armor equal to 70% of Strength (was 50%).
Frost
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Mage
Frost
All damage abilities increased by 9%.
Monk
Windwalker
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Brewmaster
All damage is increased by an additional 2% while a two-handed weapon is equipped.
Rogue
Assassination
All damage abilities increased by 8%.
Warrior
Fury
All damage abilities increased by 8%, except for Bladestorm and Dragon Roar.
Meat Cleaver talent now increases Whirlwind’s damage by 25% (was 30%).
PVP
Players will now drop PvP flags if they activate Podtender (including Temple of Kotmogu orbs).
Note: this fix will be applied to the live game as soon as possible, before the weekly reset.
As always, the changes above (with the exception of the Podtender fix) are a work in progress, and may differ before they go live. We’ll have the final tuning noted in our Hotfixes Update post next week.
Since the launch of Shadowlands, we’ve been constantly evaluating and reacting to the player experience in Torghast, Tower of the Damned. In previous weeks, we’ve made surgical changes to address pain points. This week, with the opening of a much more difficult section of the tower, we’ve seen a great deal of feedback from players that we feel is best addressed with a whole slate of updates. Some of these changes have already gone live with hotfixes over the last 24 hours, and the rest will be applied to the game today (and possibly tomorrow).
In summary, we want to reduce the length of a Torghast run, increase players’ success rates for a few specializations that are struggling more than the others, and give players more options in dealing with the challenges that Torghast presents. Here are the changes we’re making:
Torghast, Tower of the Damned
Health and damage of all creatures in Torghast reduced by 6% at Layer 1, increasing to 26% at Layer 8.
Developers’ note: The net effect should be that Layer 8 is now roughly as difficult as Layer 6 was prior to this change, with other Layers’ difficulty is reduced proportionally.
Health of all creatures reduced for players in groups by up to 25%.
Damage of all creatures reduced for 4- and 5-player groups by up to 20%.
When the Empowered enemy at the end of a floor is a spellcaster, they should now have a longer delay between their basic magic damage spells.
Developers’ note: The goal of this change is to make powerful spellcasters less punishing for specializations that lack a frequent interrupt.
For all classes, major cooldowns will now reset when you transition to a new floor.
Developers’ note: This functionality should mirror the way cooldowns reset at the end of a raid encounter, or when starting a Mythic Keystone dungeon, affecting most abilities with a cooldown of 3 minutes or longer.
Anima Powers/Cells
The starting Anima Cell in Torghast now offers a stronger selection of Anima powers.
Anima Cells dropped by rare creatures within Torghast now always have at least 3 choices to choose from.
The chance for an Anima Cell to drop from a creature on any given floor has been increased.
Unnatural Power no longer provides immunity to crowd controlling effects at 10 stacks.
Enemies
Massive Crusher’s Armor Plating cast time increased to 3 seconds (was 1 second) and can be interrupted and/or dispelled. Recast time increased to 16 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Tower Sentinel’s Oppressive Aura haste reduction and slow now scales up to 10% (was 25%).
Deadsoul Chorus’s Death Blast now reduces healing received by 15% and stacks 5 times (was 25% and stacks 4 times).
Skeletal Remains and Lumbering Creation’s Bone Shrapnel now marks the ground and then explodes after 2 seconds, giving players time to move away (was instant).
Deadsoul Stalker now fades away after 15 melee attacks (was 7) and remains hidden for 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Deadsoul Devil now reincarnates with 15% health remaining (was at 40% health).
Bosses
Elder Longbranch’s Bounty of the Forest cast time increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds), time between casts increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds), and Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
Decayspeaker’s Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
Goxul the Devourer’s Health and damage decreased by 10%, and time between casts of Mass Devour increased to 36 seconds (was 18 seconds).
Torments and Upper Reaches
Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies’ health and damage reduced by 50%, now increase assassin health by 5% per stack (was 10%).
Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies will no longer ambush players who have recently been in combat.
The Jailer’s Directive now increases health by 10% (was 50%).
Since the launch of Shadowlands, we’ve been constantly evaluating and reacting to the player experience in Torghast, Tower of the Damned. In previous weeks, we’ve made surgical changes to address pain points. This week, with the opening of a much more difficult section of the tower, we’ve seen a great deal of feedback from players that we feel is best addressed with a whole slate of updates. Some of these changes have already gone live with hotfixes over the last 24 hours, and the rest will be applied to the game today (and possibly tomorrow).
In summary, we want to reduce the length of a Torghast run, increase players’ success rates for a few specializations that are struggling more than the others, and give players more options in dealing with the challenges that Torghast presents. Here are the changes we’re making:
Torghast, Tower of the Damned
Health and damage of all creatures in Torghast reduced by 6% at Layer 1, increasing to 26% at Layer 8.
Developers’ note: The net effect should be that Layer 8 is now roughly as difficult as Layer 6 was prior to this change, with other Layers’ difficulty is reduced proportionally.
Health of all creatures reduced for players in groups by up to 25%.
Damage of all creatures reduced for 4- and 5-player groups by up to 20%.
When the Empowered enemy at the end of a floor is a spellcaster, they should now have a longer delay between their basic magic damage spells.
Developers’ note: The goal of this change is to make powerful spellcasters less punishing for specializations that lack a frequent interrupt.
For all classes, major cooldowns will now reset when you transition to a new floor.
Developers’ note: This functionality should mirror the way cooldowns reset at the end of a raid encounter, or when starting a Mythic Keystone dungeon, affecting most abilities with a cooldown of 3 minutes or longer.
Anima Powers/Cells
The starting Anima Cell in Torghast now offers a stronger selection of Anima powers.
Anima Cells dropped by rare creatures within Torghast now always have at least 3 choices to choose from.
The chance for an Anima Cell to drop from a creature on any given floor has been increased.
Unnatural Power no longer provides immunity to crowd controlling effects at 10 stacks.
Enemies
Massive Crusher’s Armor Plating cast time increased to 3 seconds (was 1 second) and can be interrupted and/or dispelled. Recast time increased to 16 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Tower Sentinel’s Oppressive Aura haste reduction and slow now scales up to 10% (was 25%).
Deadsoul Chorus’s Death Blast now reduces healing received by 15% and stacks 5 times (was 25% and stacks 4 times).
Skeletal Remains and Lumbering Creation’s Bone Shrapnel now marks the ground and then explodes after 2 seconds, giving players time to move away (was instant).
Deadsoul Stalker now fades away after 15 melee attacks (was 7) and remains hidden for 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Deadsoul Devil now reincarnates with 15% health remaining (was at 40% health).
Bosses
Elder Longbranch’s Bounty of the Forest cast time increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds), time between casts increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds), and Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
Decayspeaker’s Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
Goxul the Devourer’s Health and damage decreased by 10%, and time between casts of Mass Devour increased to 36 seconds (was 18 seconds).
Torments and Upper Reaches
Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies’ health and damage reduced by 50%, now increase assassin health by 5% per stack (was 10%).
Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies will no longer ambush players who have recently been in combat.
The Jailer’s Directive now increases health by 10% (was 50%).
On 28 November, we enabled the Free Character Transfer service for players who have characters on high population realms that were experiencing consistent, extended queues.
Free Character Transfers will be closed for all realms after 20:00 CET on Thursday, December 17.
We strongly suggest that any players who intend to use a Free Character Transfer do so as soon as possible. If this service is available on your realm, you’ll find it in the Services section of the Shop on your character selection screen for that realm.
On November 28, we enabled the Free Character Transfer service for players who have characters on high population realms that were experiencing consistent, extended queues.
Free Character Transfers will be closed for all realms after 11:00 a.m. PST (2:00 p.m. EST) on Thursday, December 17.
We strongly suggest that any players who intend to use a Free Character Transfer do so as soon as possible. If this service is available on your realm, you’ll find it in the Services section of the Shop on your character selection screen for that realm.
We’ve made a few further adjustments to the plan for tuning coming with scheduled weekly maintenance.
Druid
Balance
Starfall damage reduced 6%.
Balance of all Things [Legendary] now causes Eclipse to increase your critical strike chance with Arcane or Nature spells by 40%, decreasing by 8% every 1 second (was 50% crit, decreasing by 10% per second).
We’ve made a few further adjustments to the plan for tuning coming with scheduled weekly maintenance.
Druid
Balance
Starfall damage reduced 6%.
Balance of all Things [Legendary] now causes Eclipse to increase your critical strike chance with Arcane or Nature spells by 40%, decreasing by 8% every 1 second (was 50% crit, decreasing by 10% per second).
The mouseover tooltip that lists your top runs has been excluding runs that fail the timer. That is a display issue only. The rewards will be correct on Tuesday, and you do not need to beat the timer for your Mythic Keystone dungeon completions to count towards progress.
And that is a separate issue. There’s often a delay of a few minutes before the Great Vault UI updates to reflect a recent Mythic Keystone completion. While we look into that, we’ve found that logging out of WoW and back in will force it to update.
We have the final PvP adjustments for this week, going into effect with weekly maintenance in each region:
Player versus Player
Demon Hunter
(Conduit) Unnatural Malice’s effect is reduced by 50% in PvP.
Mage
Arcane
(Legendary) Arcane Harmony may only reach a maximum of 10 stacks in PvP (was 15).
Rogue
(Conduit) Reverberation effectiveness reduced by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was a 30% reduction).
(Kyrian Covenant) Echoing Reprimand initial damage reduced by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
Assassination
Nightstalker increases damage dealt while Stealth is active by 25% (was 50%).
Subtlety
Cold Blood (PvP Talent) damage is now properly reduced by effects such as Versatility.
Shadow Blades now deals an additional 30% damage against enemy players, (was an additional 40% damage).
Nightstalker increases damage dealt while Stealth or Shadow Dance is active by 8% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 12%).
Pelagos Soulbind
Combat Meditation Mastery value reduced by 50% in PvP, and duration increased by 50% in PvP.
We’re internally testing the following slate of adjustments, with the goal of implementing these changes during scheduled weekly maintenance (December 16 in this region).
Classes
Tank Specializations
Threat generation for all Tanks increased by 10%.
Death Knight
Unholy
Mastery: Dreadblade effectiveness reduced by 20%.
Blood
Blood Boil damage increased by 10%.
Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
Marrowrend damage increased by 10%.
Death Strike damage increased by 5%.
Demon Hunter
Havoc
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Druid
Balance
Starfall damage reduced 6%.
Balance of all Things [Legendary] now causes Eclipse to increase your critical strike chance with Arcane or Nature spells by 40%, decreasing by 8% every 1 second (was 50% crit, decreasing by 10% per second).
Hunter
Marksmanship
Aimed Shot damage reduced by 5%.
Arcane Shot damage reduced by 5%.
Rogue
Assassination
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Shaman
Restoration
All healing abilities reduced by 4%.
Healing Rain reduced by an additional 10%.
Warlock
Destruction
Chaos Bolt damage increased by 22%.
Warrior
Arms
Mortal Strike damage increased by 20%. Damage reduced by an equivalent amount in PvP.
Slam (Rank 3) now increases Slam’s damage by 50% (was 25%).
Fury
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
As we test, the above are subject to change before Wednesday. If we do have further changes, we’ll update here as soon as possible.
As always, this is not a comprehensive list of all adjustments we might make to the game. In particular, we’re considering tweaks to several classes’ Torghast powers. You’ll find our updated hotfixes post here, including all changes made to the game soon after they’re implemented.
We have the final PvP adjustments for this week, going into effect with weekly maintenance in each region:
Player versus Player
Demon Hunter
(Conduit) Unnatural Malice’s effect is reduced by 50% in PvP.
Mage
Arcane
(Legendary) Arcane Harmony may only reach a maximum of 10 stacks in PvP (was 15).
Rogue
(Conduit) Reverberation effectiveness reduced by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was a 30% reduction).
(Kyrian Covenant) Echoing Reprimand initial damage reduced by 50% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
Assassination
Nightstalker increases damage dealt while Stealth is active by 25% (was 50%).
Subtlety
Cold Blood (PvP Talent) damage is now properly reduced by effects such as Versatility.
Shadow Blades now deals an additional 30% damage against enemy players, (was an additional 40% damage).
Nightstalker increases damage dealt while Stealth or Shadow Dance is active by 8% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 12%).
Pelagos Soulbind
Combat Meditation Mastery value reduced by 50% in PvP, and duration increased by 50% in PvP.
We’re internally testing the following slate of adjustments, with the goal of implementing these changes during scheduled weekly maintenance (December 15 in this region).
Classes
Tank Specializations
Threat generation for all Tanks increased by 10%.
Death Knight
Unholy
Mastery: Dreadblade effectiveness reduced by 20%.
Blood
Blood Boil damage increased by 10%.
Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
Marrowrend damage increased by 10%.
Death Strike damage increased by 5%.
Demon Hunter
Havoc
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Druid
Balance
Starfall damage reduced 6%.
Balance of all Things [Legendary] now causes Eclipse to increase your critical strike chance with Arcane or Nature spells by 40%, decreasing by 8% every 1 second (was 50% crit, decreasing by 10% per second).
Hunter
Marksmanship
Aimed Shot damage reduced by 5%.
Arcane Shot damage reduced by 5%.
Rogue
Assassination
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Shaman
Restoration
All healing abilities reduced by 4%.
Healing Rain reduced by an additional 10%.
Warlock
Destruction
Chaos Bolt damage increased by 22%.
Warrior
Arms
Mortal Strike damage increased by 20%. Damage reduced by an equivalent amount in PvP.
Slam (Rank 3) now increases Slam’s damage by 50% (was 25%).
Fury
All damage abilities increased by 5%.
As we test, the above are subject to change before Tuesday. If we do have further changes, we’ll update here as soon as possible.
As always, this is not a comprehensive list of all adjustments we might make to the game. In particular, we’re considering tweaks to several classes’ Torghast powers. You’ll find our updated hotfixes post here, including all changes made to the game soon after they’re implemented.
Soon after the Castle Nathria raid went live for Normal and Heroic difficulties this week, we discovered a bug that was causing an unintended additional amount of loot to drop. Due to this bug, bosses have been dropping an average of 5 items for a 20-player raid group, when an average of 3 items is intended.
Throughout the design and testing of Shadowlands, we’ve had a consistent goal of bringing a similarity to the rate of loot acquisition that players experience in each of the main endgame activities: Raiding, Mythic Keystone Dungeons, and PvP. This bug, if left unaddressed, would prioritize Normal and Heroic raiding over similar-difficulty dungeons and PvP progression.
We’re developing a fix for the issue, which we will implement with scheduled weekly maintenance (16 December in this region). Neither the bug nor the fix will affect Conduits and Legendary Memories, as their drop chances are determined separately.
