Kaivax

In addition to other hotfixes that we’ll note in the hotfixes update later today, we want to highlight three Sanctum of Domination fixes that we’re currently working on and intend to implement with the weekly reset in each region.

Sanctum of Domination

Painsmith Raznal

• The damage associated with spike waves now more consistently matches their visual effect.

Guardian of the First Ones

• The Physical damage portion of...

Over the last few days, we’ve read thousands of pieces of feedback on the same-faction Battleground test, and we’ve been working through what we can do in Burning Crusade Classic to meet as many of our goals as possible.

Some players literally asked for more understanding of our goals, so we’d like to list out the goals we think are most pertinent to the Battleground queue situation:

• Emulate the design pillars and intentions of original Burning Crusade game systems.
• Leverage modern tech and design to address modern issues.
• Make surgical changes to the game to improve the player experience.
• Address player concerns in ways that capture the spirit of the original design of the game.

We’ve heard a clear majority of players telling us that they preferred same-faction Battlegrounds after our first test. During that test, we saw the benefits of drastically lowered queue times and less unavoidable ganking in the outdoor world. How...

We’ve read feedback from players and observed in-game activities that have led us to see that the Fallen Charger could be better configured.

The initial design intention with Fallen Charger was to make it similar to the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, but that setup didn’t match how other rare spawns behave in Shadowlands, so we changed it on the PTR to work like other rares, where players would want to organize to defeat it because the drop chance would be meaningful enough to warrant doing so.

However, there’s a growing sense of frustration for many as the mount currently feels like something that requires repeated and constant grinding in Group Finder. So with a hotfix that is going live soon today, we’re making three updates to the Fallen Charger:

• It will now drop an appropriate amount of Maw loot, such as Stygia, Ve’nari Reputation, and a chance for a Korthian Armament.
• It will now incur the daily loot lockout when you kill it.
• We’ve increase...

Over the first couple of weeks of Chains of Domination, we’ve seen a lot of feedback on how, as the denizens of Azeroth have learned how to maneuver in the Maw more smoothly and efficiently, there is one real sore spot remaining for players: the loss of Stygia on death in the Maw.

It makes sense that the Maw walkers should learn how to mitigate that as well. So with a hotfix that is now live on all realms, we’ve:

• Added a new reward to Archivist Roh-Suir’s vendor list that will reduce players’ Stygia loss in The Maw by 75%.

The new item is called Treatise: Bonds of Stygia in Mortals, and it’s available at tier 4 with The Archivists’ Codex.

I’ve noticed that it seems to vary from one realm to another, and in some places, from one zone to another.

The three channels I always have on are:
/General
/LocalDefense
/LookingForGroup

And the prominence of each seems to have little to do with the purpose of each, and much more to do with the presence of people who want to chat in that zone on that realm.

I was just in Bastion a little while ago and I asked a question in /General and a lively discussion took off.

After we posted about yesterday’s hotfixes, we finalized some additional updates to the Sylvanas encounter, which will be live following maintenance in this region.

The changes are:

Sylvanas Windrunner

• The total damage players must do to Sylvanas Windrunner has been reduced by approximately 5% in Normal and Heroic Difficulties.
• Sylvanas Windrunner now transitions out of Stage 1 at 84% on Normal and Heroic Difficulties.

• Developers’ notes: We felt that players were losing too much uptime due to mechanics, and getting out ...

We’ve added some PvP offsets to tomorrow’s update.

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • Kill Command, Cobra Shot, Barbed Shot, Multi-Shot, and Kill Shot damage increased by 15%.
• Marksmanship
  • Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Rapid Fire damage increased by 10%.
  • Kill Shot damage increased by 15%.
• Survival
  • Serpent Sting, Wildfire Bomb, Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Flanking Strike, and Kill Shot damage increased by 10%.

Mage

• Fire
  • Fireball damage increased by 20%.
  • Fire Blast damage increased by 15%.
  • Pyroblast damage increased by 5%.

Priest

• Shadow
  • Devouring Plague damage reduced by 8%.
  • Dissonant Echoes’ (Conduit) Void Bolt damage reduced by ...

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who played Battlegrounds last week and sent us thoughtful and informed feedback on same-faction play. While we don’t plan to re-enable it again over the next few days, we’re analyzing the data we collected, and we’re planning to test more soon.

Here are some of our initial findings that will inform our next test:

• Before this test, most players who joined the queue were unable to get a match, sometimes after waiting for over an hour and/or dropping out of the queue altogether. This was particularly unfortunate at some times of day or in some regions. During the test, BG queue times became short and reliable for both factions.
• Prior to the first test, we wondered if the queue was having an effect on PvP in the outdoor world, and we now have data showing that when same-faction Battlegrounds were available, PvP deaths in the outdoor world were very close to 50/50 between the factions.
• Similarly, win-rates fo...

Updated July 12 at 16:30 with PvP notes.

With Season 2 now underway and Mythic Difficulty Sanctum of Domination opening with scheduled maintenance next week, we’re working on a tuning pass for a few Classes.

As always, these are subject to further change before they go live, and we’ll have the final adjustments in our hotfixes update next week.

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • Kill Command, Cobra Shot, Barbed Shot, Multi-Shot, and ...

We’ve added one additional update, which is now available for testing on the PTR along with the rest of this package.

Paladin
Kyrian – Divine Resonance: Reduced the duration of Divine Resonance to 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).

Following further review and testing, we’ve decided to strike two of these changes:

Priest

• Kyrian - Spheres’ Harmony: Cooldown reduction increased to 3 seconds (was 2 seconds) and cap increased to 80 seconds (was 60 seconds).

Warrior

• Venthyr - Sinful Surge: Condemn now extends the duration of Recklessness by 1.5 seconds (was 2 seconds).

Hello. Yes. That is how it’s intended to work. Tazavesh Hard Mode must be completed in one full run. Once the instance has been soft reset, hard mode will no longer be active, and will have to be re-initialized from the beginning.

Hello.

While we don’t, as a rule, comment on spawn rates or drop rates, I’d like to confirm that Maelie is not expected to be present every day.

Nonetheless, with a hotfix, we’re increasing her spawn rate, and we’re also making it so that Tiny Bell will no longer beckon for you help if Maelie is not up.

Those changes should go live in the next day or two.

Thank you!

In Chains of Domination, players are going to earn new Legendary items that will augment Covenant class abilities for the first time. As with the previous Legendaries, our goal with these items is to expand the number of choices players have when crafting and equipping Legendary items.

Based on our testing and community feedback, we’ve concluded that several of these new Legendaries could use some adjustments to make them more balanced choices. We’re preparing the following changes in a hotfix that we’ll test on the PTR soon.

Death Knight

• Kyrian - Final Sentence: Damage per stack increased to 3% to 15% (was 2% to 10%), and duration increased to 18 seconds (was 10 seconds).
• Night Fae - Rampant Transference: Strength gain increased to 2% per stack (was 1% per stack).
• Venthyr - Insatiable Hunger: Base damage increased by 12%.

Demon Hunter

• Night Fae - ...

We’re currently working on a change that will make upgrading your Shards of Domination more rewarding in Sanctum of Domination. Specifically, we’re making it so that the bonuses this system grants you while in Sanctum of Domination, Torghast, Korthia, or the Maw grow in power over time.

With this change, the Blood Link, Winds of Winter, and Chaos Bane rune words will grow based on the strength of the Shards that are granting them to you. For example, if you upgrade your three Blood shards (Shard of Bek, Shard of Jas, and Shard of Rev) from their base form to Ominous Shards, the power of your Blood Link bonus will increase.

While these bonuses are not yet in play, we wanted to give you an early notice about this change to help ensure that as you spend Stygian Embers on Shard upgrades, you have as much information on hand as possible.

We’ve fixed the setting that was allowing same-faction talk across opposing teams.

Please enter the Battleground queue in-game over the next four days, and then after you’ve experienced it, let us know how it went for you in this thread.

Yes. Keystones are reduced by 1 level for players who fail to beat the timer at their max Keystone level in any Mythic Keystone dungeon the previous week.

Our configuration change to allow same-faction Battlegrounds is now live.

If you’d like to test it with us, please enter the Battleground queue in-game over the next four days, and then after you’ve experienced it, let us know how it went for you in this thread.

UPDATE 5:45 p.m. PDT July 2

We’ve fixed the setting that was allowing same-faction talk across opposing teams.

Thank you!