Kaivax

This week’s Beta and PTR builds include some updates for Marksmanship Hunters, notably their generation and spending of Focus, and updates to some of the more problematic talents.

In Battle for Azeroth, Rapid Fire’s focus generation and the Master Marksman talent increase the amount of available Focus you have a by a decent amount, which almost pushes Steady Shot’s Focus generation away from being necessary at all. Now:

• Aimed Shot Focus Cost increased to 35 (was 30).
• Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot Focus cost increased to 20 (was 15).
• Rapid Fire duration lowered to 2 seconds (was 3 seconds). Total damage dealt by Rapid Fire should be unchanged.

The above changes should cause you to spend a bit more Focus, and passively generate less from Rapid Fire.

Several talent changes are also coming to both prop up some underused talents, and replace others:

Level 15 Row:

• Redesigned: Master Marksman (Passive) – Your criti...

We have some significant updates in this week’s builds of the Beta and the PTR.

Elemental Shaman

The current version of Fulmination and Seismic Thunder in Shadowlands has a lot of different abilities generating a lot of different buffs, making things feel disjointed. In this Beta build, we’re removing Seismic Thunder entirely, and pushing more of the core abilities to interact with the Fulmination mechanic.

• Chain Lightning (and overloads) that strike two or more targets now generate one stack of Fulmination.
• Lava Burst (and overloads) now generate one stack of Fulmination.
• Earthquake’s cast time is reduced by 20% per stack of Fulmination, up to a cap of 100% reduction (instant cast), and Earthquake’s damage is increased by 20% per stack of Fulmination, up to 160%. Earthquake now also consumes all stacks of Fulmination when cast.

The recent Totem Mastery redesign hasn’t turned out as well as we hoped, so we’v...

Updated 8:25 p.m. PDT August 12

Due to a previously unforseen issue, we have decided to hold off on connecting Garona to Icecrown+Malygos until a later date, to be determined. The other listed realm connections will go ahead as planned tomorrow.

During a special maintenance period (currently planned for 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. PDT (10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, August 13), the following realm connections will be made:

• The Frostwolf and Vashj realms will join Drak’Tharon, Firetree, Malorne, Rivendare, Spirestone, and Stormscale .
• The Blackrock realm will join the Azjol-Nerub and Khaz Modan realms.
• The Garona realm will join the Icecrown and Malygos realms.
• The Bloodscalp, Boulderfist, Dunemaul, Maiev, and Stonemaul realms will join the Quel’dorei and Sen’jin realms.
• Garrosh will join Aegwynn, Bonechewer, Daggerspine, Gurubashi, and Hakkar.

We are planning more realm co...

The character wipe is complete, the Beta has been updated to the latest build, and testers can now resume.

Known Issues

• On first logging in, testers will not be able to make a Death Knight, Demon Hunter, or Allied Races character.
  • Until this is fixed, you can make a level 50 template, log in to that character, and then log out. You should then have full access to create any classes or race.
• After doing a character copy, you should begin with the quest “A Chilling Summons” to avoid potential difficulties.
• Some Demon Hunter player-characters may have missing facial features.
  • This may be fixable by going to a barber shop and changing your tattoos.
• ...

Hello!

The WoW Engineering Team would like to celebrate a special milestone with you.

First, here’s some quick background. Whenever we want to make a change, implement a feature, or fix a bug in the World of Warcraft code, we author the change on our local computer, have it reviewed by our peers, then commit the change to the World of Warcraft code repository. Each commit is given a sequential and unique ID, which allows it to be referenced and tracked as it works its way into an expansion, patch, or hotfix. These IDs have been increasing, from the number 1, since the moment the very first lines of code were committed to the fledgling game project that would eventually become World of Warcraft.

We are excited to share that we recently committed the 1,000,000th change to the WoW codebase! In addition to being an awesome decimal landmark, this puts us within striking distance (only 48,576 commits away) of being able to report WoW’s total code changes in mega-c...

Good morning!

There are competing theories about what happened. One is that Saurfang overslept. Another has to do with the gates on Pagle having particularly stuck hinges.

Nonetheless, we think it’s now fixed and the 13 Hour War is over on Pagle.

Never forget.

Congratulations to the first guilds to kill C’Thun in this region:

Very impressive!

Correct!

We caught this bug as soon as we saw it on the first realm in China last night.

We deployed a ...

I can confirm that the planned connections were completed about an hour ago:

• The Drak’thul and Skywall realms have joined the Silvermoon and Mok’Nathal realms.
• The Cairne and Perenolde realms have joined the Cenarius realm.
• The Grizzly Hills and Lothar realms have joined the Malfurion and Trollbane realms.
• The Ravenholdt and Twisting Nether realms have joined Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, and The Venture Company.

Since the launch of WoW Classic 12 months ago, we’ve been looking forward to this day with many of you. We watched along this morning as intrepid adventurers on five realms in this region completed the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline, went to Silithus along with hundreds of others, and rang the gong, starting the 10 Hour War.

Congratulations to the first few gong ringers on each realm:

During Beta maintenance tomorrow morning (August 5), we intend to delete all test characters in the Shadowlands Beta.

Once the Beta realms are live with the new build of the Shadowlands Beta, please copy your test character(s) over and start with the quest “A Chilling Summons”.

All of the means by which content can be skipped (flaskataurs) will also be removed.

Thank you!

Currently watching along on Earthfury:

Hello!

Since the Ahn’Qiraj content went live with the last weekly reset, we’ve been closely following the progress made by players on every realm. In particular, we’re looking forward to the ringing of the gong on the five realms in this region that have completed their War Effort and will see supplies delivered to Silithus by 11:00 a.m. PDT tomorrow:

• Sulfuras
• Skeram
• Incendius
• Netherwind
• Earthfury

They are listed above in the order that they completed turn-ins, which began the 120-hour-long process of transporting supplies.

We expect that players will begin ringing the gong on those realms soon after the weekly reset tomorrow, and that will begin the 10 Hour War, during which additional players who meet the requirements to do so may also ring the gong. At the end of the 10 Hour War, the 20- and 40-person raids will open on those realms.

We also expect that Silithus is going to be a packed house on th...

We’ve seen reports that on some realms, players appear to be disrupting those who are working on the Green Scepter Shard portion of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline. Specifically, by bringing uninvolved and low-level characters to engage with a required enemy and buff its stats/abilities.

As we did in original WoW, Blizzard Customer Support is going to take action on players who participate in such griefing, which could include the suspension of the player’s account.

It’s important to note that the key factor here is the presence or absence of a PvP solution. Players who are doing the quest cannot stop same-faction players (or a Normal realm, any players) from running into a boss that has a mechanic that amplifies the boss from that behavior.

Thanks to those who brought this to our attention.

As we’ve said elsewhere:

The reporting system is there to help us combat bad behavior, toxicity, and unfair gameplay. Attempts to trick or defraud a Game Master or abusing the system will result in account actions.

For anyone whose account received a suspension or action and would like to appeal, ...

During a scheduled maintenance period (currently planned for 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, August 4), the following realm connections will be made:

• The Drak’thul and Skywall realms will join the Silvermoon and Mok’Nathal realms.
• The Cairne and Perenolde realms will join the Cenarius realm.
• The Grizzly Hills and Lothar realms will join the Malfurion and Trollbane realms.
• The Ravenholdt and Twisting Nether realms will join Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, and The Venture Company.

We are planning more realm connections for low-population realms, and we will post further notifications like this one in the coming weeks.

Thank you!

Beta Update July 29

• Access to Torghast is now unlocked on an account-wide basis.
• When in a party, your highest accessible layer will be defined by the party member with the lowest layer unlocked.
• Anima Cells have updated to look more visible.
• The door which allows you to exit Torghast has been updated to be less prone to accidental clicking at the start of each floor.

Respeccing & Gear Swapping

• Players will no longer be able to change their gear, Talents, or Soulbinds at the start of every floor.
• Players can now change their Gear, Talents, or Soulbinds in the Central Chamber, at the start of the first floor, and in the vicinity of helpful Brokers on non-Boss floors in Torghast.

Currency Updates

• The Torghast-acquired legendary material is now named Soul Ash, and can be acquired from chests at the end of each layer once pe...

Character copy is now available, however, there are issues copying Demon Hunters and Death Knights.

Starting next week in the Shadowlands Beta, we will begin introducing a series of updates to the Soulbind system to add a persistent collection system for Conduits. Since the Soulbind system was unveiled in the Alpha and discussed in our Developer Update, we’ve heard consistent feedback about the shortcomings of an inventory-based destructible version of Conduits, and we agree entirely.

While we feel it’s important that there be some friction in moving Conduits around, the prospect of the having to re-earn a given Conduit, perhaps by chasing a specific dungeon or raid boss drop, was not particularly appealing to anyone. However, simply removing destructibility without making other changes would have created an inventory management nightmare, especially for players who enjoy playing multiple specializations.

Once this new system is in place, Conduits will work like this:

• Conduits will continue to be items that can be earned from a wide variety of endgame co...

We checked this and it looks like everything in Silithus has been operating as expected on Bigglesworth.