Kaivax

We have a few adjustments to item upgrades in patch 10.0.5 that we want to outline and clarify.

War Mode and Primal Storms gear are no longer upgraded by trading gear and upgrade currency (Trophies of Strife, Storm Sigils) at the previous vendors (Malicia in the Gladiator’s Refuge and Rethelshi in the Sapphire Enclave). These items now use the other item upgrade vendors that Valor, Honor, and Conquest gear have used, such as Corxian in the Gladiator’s Refuge.

War Mode and Primal Storms gear obtained at level 70 prior to this patch will still be upgradeable. However, War Mode gear obtained pre-level 70, before the patch, will not be upgradeable.

• New pre-level 70 gear obtained after the 10.0.5 patch went live will be upgradeable.

There’s a bug fix in patch 10.0.5 to The Drakebreaker’s Breastplate. Before 10.0.5, it incorrectly cost 7 Trophies of Strife to upgrade. It now costs 10 Trophies of Strife to upgrade. This was done t...

Revisiting the scoring system as a whole is something we may do in future Seasons.

But any changes are inherently retroactive, and must be to be fair. We don’t want to make a midseason change that would lower the Rating a majority of M+ players, dropping many of them below important thresholds.

Thus, this is a surgical change to sharpen competition at the very high end, while minimizing the midseason impact to the majority.

With maintenance next week (January 31 in this region), we’ll make a change to Mythic Keystone Dungeon Ratings. Thereafter, completing a Mythic+21 or higher dungeon, but exceeding the target time, will award Mythic+ Rating as if the dungeon were a Mythic+20.

We award partial Mythic Rating credit for completed dungeons beyond the target time (up to 40% over the target time) to recognize the skill and effort involved, and to encourage groups to stick together even if it seems like they’re going to fall a bit short of the timer. But at the very high end of the system, we’ve heard feedback that sometimes the best way to attain further incremental Rating increases is seeking out keys that a group may have no hope of clearing within the timer. We don’t want to change the way the system works for the vast majority of players who are working their way towards new Valor upgrade tiers or cosmetic unlocks, but past the Mythic+20 threshold, there are no further tangible rewards, other th...

Welcome back to World of Warcraft. We’ve deployed patch 10.0.5 and completed maintenance.

Our maintenance period today ran a bit longer than we initially expected, but we made good use of it. We took the extra time to deal with some unexpected issues that can only be found and dealt with in the ‘live’ WoW environment(s). At times like this, we’re highly aware of how much players want to get in and try out the new patch, and all day long you’ve been top of mind for us.

Thank you for your patience!

With today’s 10.0.5 patch,

• Epic items that have a chance to drop off of non-boss enemies in Mythic Vault of the Incarnates are now bind-on-equip.

With a configuration change that is now live, we’ve made it possible for cross-realm groups of players to queue together for Arenas and Battlegrounds.

For more information on how to create a cross-realm party, see our Support Article here.

Good luck out there!

We’ve seen data and feedback from players on Oceanic realms that they have had very long queues for PvP activities, so we’ve decided to make it possible for them to queue into games with their counterparts in the Americas. This configuration change was made during maintenance today.

The PvP queue system will continue to prioritize matching players with other players in the same region, but if it can’t find a match within the same region in a reasonable amount of time, it will extend the search to include players from both Oceanic and Americas realms.

The change was put into place after Arena Season awards for Season 5 were assigned. It was necessary for us to keep the two regions’ leaderboards separate until after the final rankings were determined.

Thank you for all of your feedback and enthusiasm!

In addition to the class changes that are part of the 10.0.5 patch, during scheduled weekly maintenance on Tuesday, January 24, we will make a number of tuning adjustments to specializations based on their performance in Raid and M+ content. It’s our intent that these changes help make these specializations viable options for raid and dungeon content.

Druid

• Balance
  • Fixed an issue where Cosmic Rapidity did not increase the frequency of Shooting Stars to occur based on the increased rate of Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare.
  • Lunar Eclipse now increases the damage Starfire does to nearby enemies by 30% (was 50%).
    • This is an adjustment to the 10.0.5 PTR values for this ability.
• Developers’ notes: The redesign of Lunar Eclipse proved to be a bit overtuned during testing so we’re reining it in a bit. The current tuning should still make Lunar Eclipse the ideal...

Wrath of the Lich King Classic Patch Notes

Version 3.4.1 Build 47612
January 17, 2023

Ulduar

• All encounters in Ulduar in Wrath Classic have been re-tuned to use the original (and in many cases) most challenging iterations from Patch 3.1 of original Wrath of the Lich King.
• The power level of items found in Ulduar, crafted items requiring Runed Orbs, Emblem of Conquest items, and Season 6 PvP Rewards have been increased fr...

Yes. Today’s patch includes the Orb of Naxxramas just inside the entrance to Naxxramas. You may use it to teleport directly to Frostwyrm Lair.

The Immortal and Undying achievements will still require you to clear the entire raid, without any deaths during any boss encounters, within a single lockout. That can be done in any order now.

We have a hotfix coming to the game later this week. With this hotfix, we will have:

• Fixed some situations where players could win Need rolls on duplicate items in a single roll session when it should not have been possible.

This has already been working as intended for most items, but should now include items such as Tier Tokens and weapons.

Additionally, we’ve got some updates to loot distribution coming in 10.0.5–

• Fixed an issue where, in some rare cases, players would get less loot than they should have on certain Raid sizes.
• Fixed an issue where players could unconditionally roll Need on Set Tokens. The system will now check if the player owns the Token or the Set Piece itself at equal or greater power.
• Players can no longer roll Need on any Profession recipe that they have already learned.
• Players can no longer unconditionally roll Need on 1H weapons (or 2H for a Warrior in Fury loot spec).
...

Class set items from Mythic Vault of the Incarnates and Elite PVP are intended to display lightning visual effects. These effects are typically attached to the shoulder and helm items. Unfortunately we have a bug that has prevented many of them from functioning as intended.

The bug will be fixed with the launch of 10.0.5.

The Gleaming Incarnate Thunderstone, which you get as a reward for earning the Dragonflight Keystone Hero: Season 1 achievement, is intended to grant the lightning visual effect to non-Mythic difficulty class sets (and to grant the non-lightning version to the Mythic or Elite sets). So if you have the Normal difficulty shoulder appearance for your tier set, using this item will grant an additional appearance with the same color and added lightning effects. This applies to any item appearances you have already unlocked or unlock in the future, so unlocking your Heroic shoulders in the future will also immediately the lightning-infused ...

The update went live late yesterday.

This change also went to the live game late yesterday.

With scheduled weekly maintenance next week, a number of specializations will receive throughput increases to several spells targeted at improving their performance in Raid and M+ content. It’s our intent that these changes help make these Specializations viable options for raid and dungeon content.

Demon Hunter

• The Hunt’s damage over time effect no longer deals an additional tick on application. Damage dealt over the total duration remains unchanged.
• Vengeance
  • Thick Skin armor bonus increased to 130% (was 100%)
  • Calcified Skin initial damage reduction value increased to 12% (was 10%)
  • Painbringer duration increased to 6 seconds (was 5 seconds)

Druid

• Feral
  • All ability damage increased by 3%.

Evoker

• Devastation
  • Fire Breath damage inc...

We’ve just posted an update on changes coming to improve Rated Solo Shuffle.

Happy New Year champions!

Before the holidays, we posted an update about future improvements that we’re working on for Rated Solo Shuffle, and we want to provide additional information on those updates. For additional information about Rated Solo Shuffle, please refer to the FAQ about Rated Solo Shuffle that was previously posted.

Coming with Weekly Restarts

Next week, we will make an update so that leaving a match will impact both Matchmaking Rating and Current Rating. We’ve received...

As we approach Wrath Classic 3.4.1 and the release of Ulduar, we want to make sure all players know that the Glory of the Raider Black Proto-Drake, Plagued Proto-Drake, the Immortal title, and the Undying title will remain available to be earned throughout Wrath Classic.

Good luck earning these rewards in the months to come!

Greetings,

We’re excited to see Rated Solo Shuffle underway in Dragonflight Season 1 and are happy to see interest in the feature. In October, we posted an FAQ about Rated Solo Shuffle and we want to provide another update following the abundance of feedback and data we’ve received.

Tit...

Now that Season 1 is underway, we’re planning the following tuning adjustments to classes, to take place during scheduled weekly maintenance on December 20.

Classes

Druid

• Restoration
  • All healing increased by 5%. This change does not apply to PvP combat.
  • Embrace of the Dream healing increased by 25%.
  • Luxuriant Soil now has a 1.5/3% (was 1/2%) chance to spread Rejuvenation.
    • The tooltip will not reflect this change, but it will be corrected in a future update.

Death Knight

• Soul Reaper damage increased by 10%.
• Icy Talons duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
• Unholy...

We’ve opened our application form for the 2023 WoW Community Council.

If you’d like to b...