Greetings, Death Knights.

This week’s alpha build has our first round of changes to both the core class tree and the Unholy spec tree. As stated in our initial messaging our goals for the core tree updates were to shift some of the damage throughput at the end of the talent tree to earlier in the tree. For Unholy our goal was to address some of the flood of resources, reduce the number of things that need to be tracked to play optimally, increase pathing as well as choice, and reduce the number of nodes you need to pick up to play the spec fluidly. We will go into a little more detail below for both the core and Unholy changes.

Core

The core tree has undergone a decent reshuffling of talent placement, node pathing, ability’s becoming basel...

We’ve been playtesting, and iterating, and reading your feedback about Feral.

We hear that you’re sad to lose the combo of getting AOE value out of Ferocious Bites cast with Apex Predator, and we do want Apex Predator to be an appealing AOE talent. Since we also want to bring significance back to maximizing Tiger’s Fury windows, we’re also not happy with compelling you to overwrite Rips benefitting from Tiger’s Fury with Primal Wrath in AOE to deal damage with Tear Open Wounds. So we’re trying a different version of AOE gameplay by restoring Rampant Ferocity and removing Tear Open Wounds.

This retains the rotational clarity that’s a priority for us - in AOE you’ll maintain Rips with Primal Fury and spend additional combo points and Apex Predator procs on Ferocious Bite. The bonus to Rip and Rake damage from Predator will remain single target, as we don’t want this to feel like a maintenance buff in AOE and would prefer to keep its role funneling damage into your priori...

The Stormbringer Hero Talent tree has been implemented in today’s Alpha build.

The Stormbringer is all about the celebration of being the only lightning caster across all classes. Our goal is to to push that fantasy forward with enhancements to your existing lightning spells as well as access to a new spell, Tempest, that occasionally replaces your Lightning Bolt.

Known issues:

• Tuning, sound, and visuals are not final.
• The Conductive Energy talent is currently marked NYI and is not functional
• The final talent, Awakening Storms, has issues with Lightning Bolt overloads while playing Elemental Shaman.

We’re excited for you to try this out and send feedback our way. Thanks!

Here is this week’s update to The War Within Alpha:

NEW ZONES AND DELVES

• Azj-Kahet

NEW DUNGEONS

• City of Threads
• Ara-Kara, City of Echoes

NEW BATTLEGROUND: DEEPHAUL RAVINE

• Deephaul Ravine is themed in The Ringing Deeps where the Foreman Uzjax and Architect Ruffious are tasked with collecting as much valuable ore, gems, and crystals for their respective priorities. Ruffious the Unbound Earthen has big plans for the ore and gems found in the Deephaul Ravine, but the Machine Speakers of the Earthenworks are quite possessive of such precious materials. Uzjax and his team plan to secure these materials before Ruffious and his band of misfits get their hands on it.
  • Mechanics
    • 8v8 and 10v10 Battleground that will be available in all battleground modes.
    • Hybrid map in which teams earn points by contr...

Added an additional hotfix to today’s update:

• Addressed issues with Dwarven and Night Elf archaeology projects. The following projects are now available during the Cataclysm Classic Pre-patch:
  • Dwarf
    • Silver Kris of Korl
    • Warmaul of Burningeye
    • Word of Empress Zoe
    • Pipe of Franclorn Forgewright
    • Spiked Gauntlets of Anvilrage
    • Scepter of Bronzebeard
    • The Innkeeper’s Daughter
  • Night Elf
    • Wisp Amulet
    • Carcanet of the Hundred Magi
    • Umbra Crescent
    • Bones of Transformation
    • Silver Scroll Case

May 8, 2024

Cataclysm Classic

• Professor Thaddeus Paleo has returned to Stormwind and Orgrimmar to continue collecting Darkmoon decks and he will continue to do so until the opening of Darkmoon Faire Island.

May 8, 2024

Season of Discovery

• Fixed an issue with Efflorescence generating frequent immune messages on totems.

Hotfixes

May 10, 2024

Classes

• Warlock
  • Fixed an issue where the scaling of Inferno would become reduced when Rain of Fire affected more than 5 targets.

Dungeons

• Dawn of the Infinite end bosses should now drop Awakened Crests.

Mounts

• Taivan awoos when summoned, like a good boy.

Non-player Characters

• Kessa, the Personal Tabard Vendor located in Valdrakken should now be available to all alts after completing the questline to unlock the personal tabard.

Professions

• Tailoring...

A few minutes ago, we deployed hotfixes to address issues with Dwarven and Night Elf archaeology projects. The following projects are now available during the Cataclysm Classic Pre-patch:

Dwarf

• Silver Kris of Korl
• Warmaul of Burningeye
• Word of Empress Zoe
• Pipe of Franclorn Forgewright
• Spiked Gauntlets of Anvilrage
• Scepter of Bronzebeard
• The Innkeeper’s Daughter

Night Elf

• Wisp Amulet
• Carcanet of the Hundred Magi
• Umbra Crescent
• Bones of Transformation
• Silver Scroll Case

We also double-checked on the Pterrordax Hatchling and found it waiting as intended in Fossil Digsites at Archaeology skill level 525.

Hello, Destruction Warlocks.

With the release of 10.2.7 yesterday, the scaling of Inferno became heavily reduced when Rain of Fire affects more than 5 targets. We investigated this, and found it was a change that was originally implemented with Shadowlands Season 4, and later became unintentionally broken with the launch of Dragonflight and went unnoticed.

With the release of 10.2.7, the reduced scaling was inadvertently fixed when unrelated changes were made.

Considering the timing of this, we’re going to remove the reduced scaling. In The War Within, we plan to redesign Inferno to address how Destruction scales in power in relation to target count.

Thank you for the reports regarding this issue and we hope to have the fix implemented soon.

May 7, 2024

Cataclysm Classic

• Legendary appearances may now be added to your Transmogrification collection. In anticipation of community response to this change, we have also added a pitchfork.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the Monstrous Clams in the quest “Clammy Hands” to be non-interactive.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Naralex and his discipline from correctly spawning in the Southern Barrens.
• Druid Thrash now benefits from and consumes the Clearcasting effect from Omen of Clarity.
• Fixed an issue where Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild were incorrectly stacking their stat increases.
• Fixed an issue where level 80 boosted characters were not properly learning their class and spec’s Mastery abilities.
• Prayer of Mending now scales by the intended amount from spell power.
• Conflagrate will no longer consume lower-rank Immolates belonging to other Warlocks.
• ...

May 7, 2024

Classes

• Demon Hunter
  • Vengeance
    • Sigil of Silence duration reduced to 4 seconds (was 5 seconds).
    • Sigil of Silence cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 60 seconds).
    • Cycle of Binding now reduces Sigil cooldowns by 2 seconds per trigger (was 3 seconds).
    • Soul Cleave damage reduced by 8%.
• Druid
  • Balance
    • Season 4 (2) Set Bonus now increases the damage of your next Wrath or Starfire by 50% (was 30%).
    • Season 4 (2) Set Bonus new reduces the Astral Power cost of your next Starsurge or Starfall by 30 (was 15) and increases the damage it does by 60% (was 40%).
• Monk
  • Brewmaster
    • Keg Smash damage reduced by 10%.
    • Spinning Crane Kick damage reduced by 10%.
    • Summ...

May 6, 2024

Cataclysm Classic

• Account wide achievements that reward titles now grant them at an account level.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving daily Random Battleground rewards.
• Smoke Bomb will now properly cancel Stealth, Prowl, and Shadowmeld from enemy players.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent Warden Stillwater from spawning during the “Lawn of the Dead” quest.
• Fixed an issue where Death Knights in Blood Presence could be incorrectly, critically hit by all melee attacks.
• Reduced the cost of all honor and arena gear from Wrath of the Lich King, to better match honor gain while at level 80 compared to level 85.
• Holidays
  • Made some improvements to the Children’s Week Quests “The Banshee Queen”, “Malfurion Has Returned!”, and “The Fallen Chieftain” to more consistently grant quest credit.
• Warlock...

Updated the OP. There is no damage reduction in this hotfix tomorrow.

Tomorrow, during scheduled weekly maintenance, we’ll deploy this hotfix:

Items

• Tome of Unstable Power’s AOE target cap set to 8.

Our goal here is to keep the Tome very strong, while bringing it more in line with other DPS trinkets.