Dragonflight Closed Beta starts today and Blizzard posted gargantuan development notes for this week’s phase of testing. Check them out!
(Source)
Dragonflight Beta Development Notes
DISCOVER THE DRAGON ISLES
The Forbidden Reach (Dracthyr Starting Zone)
All Dragonflight zones are available
NEW FEATURES
NEW RACE AND CLASS: DRACTHYR EVOKER
DRAGONRIDING
Updated the double jump Launch and Skyward Ascent to both be more reliable in their directionality and movement.
Re-tuned the turn rate for dragon isle drakes to be more lenient, including a feature wherein the player’s turn rate scales with speed – lower speeds feature quicker turns, while top speeds still come with a need for slightly more planning.
Updated the Dragonriding trait window, bringing the zone unlocks and basic skills into the same pane as the unlockable traits for Dragonriding.
The Dragonriding Talent Tree is now available.
Dragonriding now features advanced turning tech that helps the drakes feel more weighty and turning more of a decision.
While boosted to very fast speeds, new tech will adjust the camera’s field-of-view. This can be disabled with the “Reduce Camera Motion” option inside the “Motion Sickness” section of the “Accessibility” menu.
When running into objects and walls, velocity is now lost based on angle and collision duration.
Dragon Glyphs are hidden throughout the skies over the Waking Shores! Fly through them to unlock achievements.
The Dragonriding Skill Track is now accessible at the dragonriding trainer Lithragosa located in Skytop Observatory.
Not all skills are displayed or implemented, but the player may earn points by collecting Dragon Glyphs and spend them for progression.
The Renewed Proto-Drake is now customizable in the Rostrum of Transformation.
FOUR MAJOR FACTIONS
Major Factions are a new way of experiencing outdoor progression – an iteration on previous reputation-based gameplay. Participating in content throughout the Dragon Isles grants reputation toward these Major Factions. Earning reputation unlocks renown ranks. Each Major Faction’s progression is different, with content fitting a variety of playstyles. Importantly, major factions are not exclusive – you can be a member of all four factions at once.
VALDRAKKEN ACCORD – The faction of the unified dragon flights working together in harmony for the protection of the Dragon Isles.
Professions: A variety of activities, Work Orders, and exploration catered towards professions and progression within the system.
Dragon Racing: Complete races on your dragon for glory and renown
Outdoor Elite locations: Cobalt Assembly, Obsidian Citadel, Tyrhold
Lay siege to the Djaradin of Dragonbane Keep within the Waking Shores
DRAGONSCALE EXPEDITION – The Explorers’ League and Reliquary have come together and formed this expedition to explore the Dragon Isles.
Discover treasure maps scattered throughout the Dragon Isles
Lots of Treasures, unique minigame-style World Quests (Climbing, Cataloging)
Progression
Expedition Supply Kit: Unlock bonuses for climbing and cataloging. Unlock tools to help find treasure and mark your discovery of areas in the world.
ISKAARA TUSKARR – Become a member of the Iskaara Tuskarr, a tribe renowned for their skills in fishing and feasting.
Fishing: New ways to fish. Unlock fishing holes. Fish in 3 difficult and unique biomes. Fish up lunkers with friends using harpoons. Collect fish offline with a net.
Contribute to a Tuskarr Feast at the village in Iskaara. Complete the event to reward hungry adventurers!
Outdoor Elite locations: Imbu, Brackenhide Hollow
Progression
Fishing Work Bench: Gather reagents for tuskarr craftsmen to improve the capability of harpoons, nets, and biome fishing.
MARUUK CENTAUR – The faction for the unified centaur clans across the Ohn’ahran Plains.
Join a hunt among the Maruuk centaur and your closest allies as you traverse the zones within the Dragon Isles
Explore the nomadic lifestyle of Clan Aylaag as their caravan makes its way across the Ohn’ahran Plains. With each stop comes a new adventure, quests, rewards, and more!
Progression
Train with the Shikaar clan to prepare yourself for the hunt!
Known Issues
You will most likely encounter placeholder rewards, especially for treasures and rare creatures.
Not every permutation of every type of content is available yet.
Some areas of the world may have temporary enemy population.
Developers’ note: We appreciate any and all feedback. For this release, we’ve reduced some of our barriers to entry for a number of pieces of content. We’d love to hear how these experiences feel and how you spend your time in the Dragon Isles. Alpha is an environment for testing and change. Though some of these barriers and values may be temporary, we will be monitoring feedback and making adjustments as needed to ensure your experience in these new lands is enjoyable and rewarding.
Please let us know your thoughts. We’ll be adjusting content throughout the days and weeks to come.
NEW DUNGEONS
Developers’ note: Throughout the testing period, character levels will be scaled when entering Dragonflight dungeons. When this happens, the amount of talent points that your character will have available will reflect the original level, not the scaled level.
Neltharus
Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
Ruby Life Pools
The Azure Vault
Brackenhide Hollow
The Nokhud Offensive
Halls of Infusion
Algeth’ar Academy
All Dragonflight dungeons are now available.
CHARACTER LEVEL
Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.
Level 58 Dracthyr Template (The Forbidden Reach starting experience)
Any Level Character Template
Maximum Level: 70
CLASSES
Mage, Priest, and Rogue available for all races
NEW TALENT SYSTEM
Switching Talents and Talent Loadouts no longer requires being in a rested area.
SAVED ACTION BARS
By default, each Talent loadout will now have its own saved set of action bars. However, if you would like certain loadouts to share the same action bars, there is a loadout option called “Use shared action bars.” All loadouts that have this option enabled will share the same action bars.
TALENT SEARCH
There is now a search bar in the new Talent UI. Players can search for specific spells, talents, or words, and any matches will be highlighted on the UI. It will also highlight talents that don’t directly match the search term, but are related to the searched talent (E.g. searching for “tidal waves” will also highlight Riptide, Healing Wave, and Healing Surge since they are mentioned in Tidal Waves’ description).
INSPECTING
Inspecting another player now offers a button to open their talent trees.
LOADOUT SHARING
Players can now share loadout talent builds with each other. To share your current loadout with another player of your same specialization, players can click the Share button in the Loadout dropdown. This will copy a series of letters and numbers that can be shared with other players. To import a talent loadout, players can click the Import Loadout button in the same dropdown to paste the talent loadout text.
We hope that this feature makes it easier for players to share talent loadouts with their friends and members of their communities.
CLASS TUNING
This week’s build has a number of adjustments to various talents and abilities across many specializations. These changes are the result of ongoing efforts to tune the damage and healing of characters. More changes should be expected in the coming weeks. Your feedback is appreciated.
DEATH KNIGHT
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Rune Mastery increased to 2 ranks. Duration increased to 8 seconds (was 6 seconds) and now grants 3% Strength per rank.
Icy Talons reduced to 2 ranks (was 3). Melee attack speed per rank increased to 3% (was 2%).
Unholy Bond reduced to 2 ranks (was 3).
Will of the Necropolis increased to 2 ranks (was 1). Damage reduction below 30% health is now 20/35% (was previously 30%).
Blood Draw increased to 2 ranks (was 1). Cooldown now reduced by 60 seconds at rank 2.
New Talent: Unholy Endurance – Increases Lichborne duration by 2 seconds and while active damage taken is reduced by 15%. Located directly below Lichborne.
New Talent: Clenching Grasp – Death Grip slows enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds. Located directly below Brittle.
Improved Death Strike max ranks reduced to 1 (was 3).
Blood
The talent tree for Blood has undergone significant updates to its pathing and connections.
Blood Boil – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
Improved Blood Boil removed.
Rune Tap – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
Improved Heart Strike – Reduced to 2 max ranks (was 3). Damage per rank increased to 15% (was 10%).
Blood Fortification – Removed from the talent tree. Now learned at level 11.
Everlasting Bond – Death Strike and Heart Strike no longer increase the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon. Now increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 1 second.
Developers’ note: While the act of extending your Dancing Rune Weapon with Heart Strike and Death Strike can be fun it quickly can overshadow the rest of Blood’s kit making any other abilities used within that window the wrong choice. In an order to address this we will be changing Everlasting Bond to be a flat duration increase in addition to its existing mechanic of summoning one extra copy of Dancing Rune Weapon. Our goal here is to open up more options throughout the tree as well as not make one style of gameplay feel mandatory permanently moving forward.
Improved Boneshield – Reduced to 1 max rank (was 2). Now increases Haste by 10% while Bone Shield is active.
Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Marrowrend.
Improved Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Vampiric Blood
Death’s Caress – Now available above the first gate.
Dancing Rune Weapon – This has moved higher into the tree and is available immediately after unlocking the 1st gate.
Hemostasis – Max ranks reduced to 1(was 2).
Hasty Bargain – Renamed to Perseverance of the Ebon Blade. Now grants 3/6% Versatility when Crimson Scourge is consumed (was Haste).
Voracious and Bloodworms are no longer a choice node.
Gorefiend’s Grasp – Now centrally located within the tree with multiple pathing options to reach it.
Tightening Grasp – Can now only be obtained directly after Gorefiend’s Grasp. Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
Heartrend – Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
Shatterning Bone – Damage now correctly scales with rank upgrades.
New Talent: Blood Feast – Anti-Magic Shell heals you for 100% of the damage it absorbs.
New Talent: Iron Heart – Blood Shield’s duration is increased by 2 seconds and it absorbs 20% more damage.
New Talent: Bloodshot – While Blood Shield is active, you deal 25% increased Physical damage.
New Talent: Sanguine Ground – You deal 5% more damage and receive 5% more healing while standing in your Death and Decay.
New Talent: Coagulopathy – Enemies affected by Blood Plague take 5% increased damage from you and Death Strike increases the damage of your Blood Plague by 25% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
New Talent: Umbilicus Eternus – After Vampiric Blood expires, you absorb damage equal to 5 times the damage your Blood Plague dealt during Vampiric Blood.
Unquenchable Thirst has been removed.
Developers’ note: This talent has been cut and replaced with Umbilicus Eternus. Unquenchable Thirst had a bit of design overlap with both Bonestorm and Shattering Bone on the opposite side of the tree. The choice to replace it was done to add what we hope is a more interesting decision point as you navigate toward the capstones especially factoring in the synergy of the new Blood Plague talents and existing Vampiric Blood talents.
Unholy
Developers’ note: In addition to Unholy’s latest changes we have a few updates we’d like to make to their talents that affect resource generation. The changes to the class tree should be a step in the right direction for better balancing Unholy’s resource economy, but we also want to target a few Unholy specific talents as well. Unholy has been a class with a higher downtime and while we think some downtime can be okay, it’s important to find a balance between too high and too low. The current alpha version swung that pendulum too far in one direction and we are looking to find a better middle ground that both feels fun and rewarding to play. Resource tuning will continue to be on going as we head into Dragonflight. As mentioned last week we are making efforts to prepare for tuning in Dragonflight as such Unholy will be receiving a few tuning tweaks to their talents.
Plaguebringer – Disease damage now ticks 100% more quickly (was 150%).
Feasting Strikes – Removed Scourge Strike’s chance to refund 1 rune, and now chance to trigger increased to 20%.
Developers’ note: Having both Festering Strike and Scourge Strike trigger a Rune refund left us very little room to tune around and also made this something that just always happened. In an effort to give us more ways to tune this and also add a little more gameplay thought we are changing this to only work on Festering Strike.
Replenishing Wound – Reduce Runic Power gained from popping a Festering Wound to 2 (was 3).
Improved Death Coil – Damage increase reduced to 15/30% (was 20/40%).
Plaguebearer – Cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 45 seconds). Status changed to implemented.
Unholy Assault – Buff duration increased to 20 seconds (was 12 seconds).
Ghoulish Frenzy – Attack speed and damage increased to 6/12% (was 4/8%).
Morbidity – Damage per disease reduced to 2% at rank 2 (was 3%).
Death Rot – Reduced to 1% per stack up to 10% (was 2% per stack, up to 20%). Increased the duration to 10 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Fixed an issue preventing Death Rot from being applied by multiple Death Knights.
Commander of the Dead – Damage to Gargoyle and Army Ghouls reduced to 30% (was 40%).
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New
Feasting Strikes – Festering Strike and Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows have 15% chance to generate 1 Rune.
Runic Mastery – Increases Maximum Runic Power by 10/20.
Plaguebringer – Scourge Strike causes your disease damage to occur 150% more quickly for 5 seconds.
Magus of the Dead – Apocalypse and Army of the Dead also summon a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at your foes.
Magus of the Dead’s Shadow Bolt damage increased by 20%.
Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt damage increased by 10%.
Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt slow duration increased to 6 seconds and 60% slow (was 4 seconds and 50%).
Ruptured Viscera – When your ghouls expire, they explode in viscera dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies.
Commander of the Dead – Dark Transformation also empowers your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead for 30 seconds, increasing their damage by 40%.
Eternal Agony – Death Coil increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 second.
Coil of Devastation – Death Coil causes the target to take an additional 35% of the direct damage dealt over 4 seconds.
Rotten Touch – Sudden Doom causes your next Death Coil to also increase your Scourge Strike damage against the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
Superstrain – Your Virulent Plague also applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague.
Plaguebearer – Inflict disease upon your enemies spreading Festering Wounds equal to the amount currently active on your target to 8 nearby enemies (45 second cooldown, 30 Runic Power). Not yet implemented, but coming in a future build!
Removed
Deadly Coil
Improved Scourge Strike
Changes
Death Coil – Runic Power cost reduced to 30 (was 40).
Unholy Command – Now reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation by 8/15 seconds (was reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation when dealing damage with Death Coil. ).
Epidemic – Damage increased by 20%.
Army of the Damned – Now reduces the cooldown of Apocalypse by 45 seconds (no longer reduced by Dark Transformation). No longer summons a Magus of the Dead when Apocalypse or Army of the Dead are cast.
Summon Gargoyle – Duration reduced to 25 seconds (was 35 seconds). Now gains 1% damage per 1 runic power spent (was per 2 runic power).
Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows – Damage increased 20%.
Morbidity – Damage per rank reduced to 1/3% (was 3/6%). Festering Wound no longer increases the damage of Morbidity and now also increases damage from Blood Plague and Frost Fever if Superstrain is talented.
DEMON HUNTER
Havoc
Developers’ note: After 10,000 years… today’s build includes early versions of Demon Hunter’s class and Havoc talent trees.
The class tree houses many of the familiar utility and defensive abilities associated with each spec and arranges them in spec-themed sections to the left (including modifiers to Fury and movement speed) and right (including Brands and options to empower them), with shared damage bonuses centered (including The Hunt and modifiers to Metamorphosis). We hope to see players take advantage of the new talent system to make choices that match their preferences, that can be tailored to meet the challenges they will face, and that create new gameplay opportunities by combining effects in ways not previously possible.
The Havoc tree takes abilities from the spec’s past and present, then puts them alongside reworked and all-new talents to provide multiple gameplay and damage output styles to invest in. Notable among them are talents that provide incentives for secondary stats like Critical Strike Chance and Mastery, as well as talents that grant significant bonuses to the skills of your choice like Chaos Strike, Eye Beam, and Immolation Aura. We hope the new trees provide opportunities to make talent builds that feel custom and distinct.
While we’re still working on the Vengeance specialization, we wanted to bring the Class & Havoc trees online so we can get community feedback as early as possible. The Vengeance tree currently in this week’s Alpha is the existing Shadowlands’ talent tree, in addition to containing all of their other abilities. This is placeholder and not indicative of their final tree, and we will be bringing the Vengeance tree online as soon as its ready. Regardless of whether you’re checking out these Demon Hunter class and Havoc talents online or trying them out in the Alpha, we hope you’ll enjoy and share your thoughts with us!
Known Issues
There are several talents that are not fully implemented yet. These are tagged with NYI (Not Yet Implemented) in their Talent name.
Vengeance
Developer’s note: Today’s build includes the final spec talent tree to be updated to its Dragonflight version: Vengeance Demon Hunter. The Vengeance tree allows players to customize their offensive and defensive gameplay to conquer the game’s challenges as they see fit. Talents include opportunities to unlock familiar skills like Spirit Bomb and Elysian Decree, to choose bonuses for core skills like Demon Spikes and Sigils, and to invest into spec systems like Soul Fragments and an expanded/reworked ‘Frailty’ debuff exclusive to Vengeance talents. In additional to the talents themselves, there are two notable changes to the base function of Souls and Soul Fragments. The first change is that non-demon Souls and Soul Fragments will require more precision to pick up manually, now requiring moving within 4 yards (down from previous 6 yards) with the intention that the circumstances where players accidentally pick up Fragments will occur less frequently. The second change increases the radius that nearby Soul Fragments will remain available for consumption via skills to 100 yards (up from previous 25 yards). We hope you’ll enjoy your experiences with the new Vengeance spec talents, and be willing to provide feedback about those experiences with us!
DRUID
EVOKER
Racials
Soar – Cooldown reduced to 4 minutes (was 5 minutes).
Familiar Skies now reduces Soar’s cooldown by 1 minute on continents that you have fully explored.
General
New Ability: Fury of the Aspects – Increases Haste by 30% for all party and raid members for 40 seconds. Allies receiving this effect will become Exhausted and unable to benefit from Fury of the Aspects or similar effects again for 10 minutes.
Class Tree
Damage of all abilities reduced by 8% except Azure Strike, Shattering Star, and Unravel.
Disintegrate damage reduced by an additional 5%.
Living Flame damage reduced by an additional 12.5%.
Enkindled reduced to 3% per rank (was 5%).
Scarlet Adaptation damage cap reduced by 19.5% (matches total Living Flame damage reduction).
Developers’ notes: We want to add additional utility-focused talent choices to the Evoker class tree to diversify talent builds. With that in mind, some additional control and self-healing options are now available:
New Talent – Grovetender’s Gift: Emerald Blossom instantly heals you for 125% spell power when cast.
New Talent – Walloping Blow – Wing Buffet and Tail Swipe knock enemies further and daze them, reducing movement speed by 70% for 4 sec.
New Talent – Regenerative Magic: – Source of Magic forms a bond with your ally, causing 20% of their healing to also heal you while you are below 50% health.
Ancient Flame moved to a new location in the tree, next to Attuned to the Dream.
Devastation
Pyre damage reduced by an additional 14%.
Azure Strike damage increased by 5%.
Shattering Star damage increased by 7%.
Arcane Intensity reduced to 8% per rank (was 10%).
Might of the Aspects reduced to 7.5% per rank (was 10%).
Volatility reduced to 10% per rank (was 15%).
Charged Blast reduced to 5% per stack (was 7%).
Preservation
Temporal Anomaly absorbs damage, rather than healing. Absorb shield stacks up to 3 times and lasts 15 seconds. Now only shields 2 allies at a time (was 3).
Temporal Anomaly will immediately slow down upon reaching an ally, even if they are full health. Speed adjusted to 10 yards per second base, 2.5 yards per sec when reaching an ally.
Temporal Anomaly mana cost reduced to 7.5% base mana (was 11.5%).
Temporal Disruption removed.
Flow State renamed to Rush of Vitality.
New: Flow State – Empower spells cause time to move 5/10% faster for you for 5 seconds. In Resonating Sphere’s old position.
Nozdormu’s Teachings causes Temporal Anomaly to shield 1 additional target, for a total of 3 targets each pulse.
Resonating Sphere now an A/B choice against Nozdormu’s Teachings. Causes Echo to be applied by Temporal Anomaly at 30% value.
Life-Giver’s Flame is now a 2 point node, and moved down one slot in the tree.
Essence Strike has been removed and replaced by Essence Attunement.
New Talent: Essence Attunement – Causes Essence Burst to stack twice.
Temporal Anomaly now heals every 2 seconds (was 1 second). Healing doubled to compensate.
Convergence has been removed and replaced by Resonating Sphere.
New Talent: Resonating Sphere – Causes Temporal Anomaly to apply Echo at 15%/30% Effectiveness (2 point node). Does not apply Echo’s direct heal. Affected by Time Lord to become up to 60% Echo effectiveness.
Temporal Disruption now causes Temporal Anomaly to tick twice as fast (was healing for more).
Grove Tender has been removed and replaced by Ouroboros.
New Talent: Ouroboros – Eeach person healed by Emerald Blossom increases healing of next Echo by 15%, stacking 15 times.
Time Keeper has swapped positions with Time of Need in the talent tree.
HUNTER
Class Changes
Survival of the Fittest removed from Tenacity pets.
New Tenacity active button – Fortitude of the Bear: Increase the maximum health of you and your pet by 20% for 10 seconds.
Class Tree
Survival Hunters: Corrected a missing connection between Kill Command and Improved Mend Pet on the class tree.
Alpha Predator’s value has been lowered to 15% (was 30%).
Improved Traps now also lowers the cooldown of Hi-Explosive Trap.
Stampede now snares targets hit by 30%, and you and your pets gain 10% increased critical strike chance against targets hit by your Stampede.
Hunter’s Agility is once again Avoidance.
Camouflage no longer links directly to Improved Traps. The choice node below Survival of the Fittest now links to Born to be Wild.
New Talent: Serrated Shots – Serpent Sting and your bleed damage is increased by 10/20% damage. This value increases to 20/40% against targets below 30% HP.
New Talent: Arctic Bola – Aimed Shot/Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite have a chance to fling a bola out at your target that bounces 2/4 times and deals increased damage per point. Targets struck by the bola are snared by 20% for 3 seconds.
Improved Traps now also reduces cooldown of Steel Trap.
Removed connection between Rejuvenating Winds and Improved Tranquilizing Shot.
Added a connection between Tranquilizing Shot and the Intimidation/Explosive Trap choice node.
Lone Survivor’s cooldown reduction has been lowered 30 seconds (was 60 seconds).
Death Chakram now increases all damage taken instead of just physical damage taken.
Hunter’s Agility changed from Avoidance to 4/8% Dodge per rank.
Thick Hides removed.
Fogged Crystal removed.
Born to be Wild now works with Survival of the Fittest and is now a 2-rank talent, reducing cooldowns of affected abilities by 10% per rank.
Improved Tranquilizing Shot changed to a 1-point node.
Survival of the Fittest added to the tree.
New Choice node for Survival of the fittest:
Reduce the cooldown of Survival of the Fittest by 60 seconds, and increase the duration by 2 seconds.
Increase the amount of damage reduction from Survival of the Fittest by 20%.
Several talents on the class tree have had their positions adjusted due to Thick Hides and Fogged Crystal being removed, as well as Survival of the Fittest being added.
New (NYI) Talent – Sentinel Owl: Call forth a Sentinel Owl to the target location, granting you unhindered vision. Your attacks ignore line of sight against any target in this area. Every 200 Focus spent grants you 1 second of the Sentinel Owl when cast, up to a maximum of 12 seconds.
New Choice node for Sentinel Owl:
Sentinel’s Perception: Sentinel Owl now also grants unhindered vision to party members when active.
Sentinel’s Wisdom: While Sentinel Owl is active, your party gains 5% Leech and 3% Avoidance.
Beast Mastery
The top of the Beast Mastery tree has been shuffled around a bit, and now starts with Cobra Shot rather than Barbed Shot.
Barbed Shot damage has been increased by 75%.
Loaded Quiver has been removed. Barbed Shot is now always 2 charges.
Barbed Wrath is now 1 point (was 2) and it no longer affects Aspect of the Wild.
Wild Call has been reduced to 1 rank.
Call of the Wild cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes.
The Bloody Frenzy that adjusted Barbed Shot Frenzy stack generation has been removed.
New Talent: Brutal Companion – When Barbed Shot causes a 3rd stack of Frenzy, your pet automatically uses their special attack (Bite/Claw/Smack) with increased damage.
Aspect of the Wild has been redesigned – Aspect of the Wild now fires a Cobra Shot at your target and another nearby target. While Aspect of the Wild is active, Cobra Shot’s Focus cost is reduced by 10, and each Cobra Shot fires a Second Cobra Shot at a nearby target.
New choice node below Aspect of the Wild:
Each temporary beast summoned reduces the cooldown of Aspect of the Wild by 5 seconds.
Cobra Shot damage increased by 30% while Aspect of the Wild is active.
Several talents shifted around past the first gate due to the above changes, but the tree’s structure is very similar.
Marksmanship
Dead Eye now also reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot.
Windrunner’s Guidance has been lowered to 25% critical strike damage bonus.
New choice node below Wailing Arrow:
Wailing Arrow resets the cooldown of Rapid Fire and grants a charge of Aimed Shot.
Wailing Arrow now fires 5 wind arrows at your primary target, and up to 10 split between any secondary targets.
Crack Shot lowered to a 1-point talent.
Calling the Shots and Eagletalon’s True Focus have swapped spots.
The talent locations of Lone Wolf and Killing Blow have been swapped.
The talent locations of Black Arrow and Legacy of the Windrunners have been swapped.
Legacy of the Windrunners changed from 1 rank to 2 ranks. Each rank adds 3 potential arrows. Bonuses to Aimed Shot now also apply to these bonus Wind Arrows.
Windrunner’s Guidance changed from 2 ranks to 1 rank. It now also guarantees a critical strike for the Wind Arrows, and increases their critical strike damage up by 50%.
Salvo now works with Volley or Multi-Shot.
Bombardment changed to a 1 rank talent and is now right below Multi-Shot.
New Talent: Bulletstorm – Extra ricochet targets from Trick Shots grants a stacking buff to Multi-Shot damage.
Calling the Shots has had its design adjusted to grant cooldown reduction for Trueshot from Focus Spent, rather than require specific shots.
Improved Arcane Shot has been to renamed Crack Shot.
Serpenstalker’s Trickery is now a 1 point talent.
A large amount of talents in the bottom left of the tree were adjusted to fix dependency problems.
Survival
Coordinated Assault, Spearhead, and related talents should be working.
Explosive Expert tooltip updated, it has no interaction with Kill Shot and is just some cooldown reduction to Wildfire Bombs.
Birds of Prey has been redesigned – Kill Shot now strikes up to 3 extra targets while Coordinated Assault is active.
New choice node against Birds of Prey: Bombardier – The cooldown of Wildfire Bombs is reset when Coordinated Assault is activated, and when it fades.
Guerilla Tactics increases the initial damage of Wildfire Bombs by 50% (was 100%).
Fury of the Eagle once again grants 50% critical strike chance against targets below 20% HP.
Ruthless Marauder increases the HP threshold for increases critical strikes by 5% per rank rather than increasing critical strike chance.
Explosive Expert changed to 2/4 second reduction per point.
Kill Command for Survival only now has an innate 10% chance to have its cooldown reset.
Predator’s Kill Command chance reduced to 15% (was 25%).
Fury of the Eagle lowered to 30% crit chance bonus against targets below 20% health.
Fury of the Eagle now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
Tactical advantage had its tooltip split to a separate number for Wildfire Bomb and Flanking Strike. Wildfire Bomb’s values reduced to 4/8% per point, Flanking Strike values unchanged.
MAGE
Class Tree
New Talent: Sloooow Down – Slow applies to all enemies within 5 yards of your target.
Blast Wave – Cooldown increased to 30 seconds (was 25 seconds).
Temporal Warp – Now causes Time Warp to not trigger its cooldown if cast without a sated or equivalent debuff.
Time Manipulation – Now requires Clearcasting Arcane Missiles. No longer decreases the cooldown of Blast Wave.
Shatter – Removed from class tree.
Added additional connections to Ring of Frost.
Frigid Winds – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Tempest Barrier – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Diverted Energy – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New
Volatile Detonation – Greatly increases the effect of Blast Wave’s knockback. Blast Wave’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
Reflection – Teleports you back to where you last Blinked. Only usable within 8 seconds of Blinking. 45 second cooldown.
Energized Barriers – When your barrier receives melee attacks, you have a 10% chance to be granted 1 Fire Blast/1 Fingers of Frost/ 1 Clearcasting charge. Casting your barrier removes all snare effects.
Freezing Cold – Enemies hit by Cone of Cold are frozen in place for 4 seconds. Your spells will not break this effect.
Time Manipulation – Casting Fire Blast/Ice Lance on Frozen targets/Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of your loss of control abilities by 1 second.
Temporal Warp – While you have Temporal Displacement or other similar effects, you may use Time Warp to grant yourself 30% Haste for 40 seconds.
Class Talents
Cone of Cold – Now learned baseline for all Mages.
Meteor – Now deals 20% additional initial damage for Frost/Arcane Mages.
Shifting Power – Now reduces spell cooldowns by 12 seconds (was 10 seconds).
Arcane Warding – Now reduces magic damage taken by 2/4% (was 3/6%).
Arcane
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Arcane Bombardment – Now increases Arcane Barrage damage to enemies below 35% health by 100% damage (previously was 50/100% but has been reduced to a 1 rank node).
Arcane Echo – Damage increased by 60% and max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
Arcane Surge – Now grants a burst of mana on cast so that the player can immediately start casting an Arcane Blast.
Rule of Threes – Now a choice node with Arcane Familiar, both have moved to row 5 (swapped with Arcane Tempo).
Evocation – Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
Improved Evocation has been removed.
Siphon Storm – Converted to a single node (was previously choice node with Improved Evocation).
Orb Barrage – Converted to a single node (was previously a choice node with Orb Barrage).
Orb Barrage – Now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 2 seconds when Clearcasting is consumed.
Prodigious Savant – Increased value to 20/40% (was 10/20%).
Nether Tempest – Damage increased by 15%.
Nether Tempest – Position on the tree has moved toward the center of the talent tree as a choice node with Reverberate, connecting from Mana Adept and Improved Arcane Barrage.
Reverberate – Position on the tree has moved toward the center of the talent tree as a choice node with Nether Tempest, connecting from Mana Adept and Improved Arcane Barrage.
Conjure Mana Gem – Now restores 25% mana (was 10%), and grants 5% increased spell power for 10 seconds baseline.
Cascading Power – Now grants up to 2 stacks of Clearcasting when consuming a Mana Gem (previously granted Spell Power).
Presence of Mind – Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
Fire
Split up the Firestarter and Searing Touch choice node above gate 1.
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Hot Streak has been moved to be baseline.
New Talent: Fervent Flickering – Ignite damage has a 5% chance to reduce the cooldown of Fire Blast by 1 second.
Fire Blast – Now always crits.
Incendiary Eruptions – No longer a choice node.
Pyromaniac – Swapped positions with Pyroclasm, now a choice node with Molten Skyfall.
Fiery Rush and Kindling no longer a choice node.
Improved Blazing Barrier has been removed.
Fire Blast Rank 2 talent has been removed.
Frost
Shatter – Replaced Shatter Rank 2 and includes both effects.
Ice Lance – Damage reduced by 10%.
Wintertide – Now a 2 point node. Ice Lance damage increased by 20% (was 30%).
Chain Reaction – Now a 1 point node. The Ice Lance damage increase effect is now 1% (was 1.5%).
Arctic Piercing – Empowered Ice Lances deal 5% damage (was 10%).
Fractured Frost – Frostbolt has a 25/50% chance to hit up to 2 additional targets (was 20/40%).
Icy Propulsion now reduces the cooldown of Icy Veins without requiring Icy Veins to be active. Now a 1 point node.
Icy Propulsion single target ability cooldown reduction is now 2 seconds (was 1 second).
Snowstorm – Now a 2 point node.
Winter’s Chill functionality is now granted by default when Flurry is learned.
Winter’s Chill talent has been removed.
Developers’ note: The Mage trees in Dragonflight are focused on offering new talents to explore, supporting underrepresented archetypes and builds, and allowing for cross-specialization abilities. We want Mages to feel like they aren’t limited to their primary school of magic, and with enough commitment, they are capable of harnessing powerful abilities from a variety of different magic sources at once. The specialization trees are built to maintain the core fantasy of each specialization while tidying up existing gameplay through talents such as a reworked Alexstrasza’s Fury for Fire Mages, Wintertide for Frost Mages, and introducing a new major cooldown, Arcane Surge, for Arcane Mages. In addition to the talent changes above, we’re making several baseline changes to spells such as Ignite spreading via Fire Blast instead of Phoenix Flames and Flurry moving to a default instant cast, charge-based design. We’re hoping these new trees and talent designs allow you to customize your character in new and exciting ways and we’re looking forward to your feedback!
MONK
General
Heavy Air – Moved to NYI, redesign coming soon.
Resonant Fists has been redesigned – Now simpler to activate and deals area of effect damage to nearby enemies.
Bounce Back – Now correctly triggers only on hits of 20% or more.
Class Talents
New Talent: Summon White Tiger Statue – Summons a White Tiger Statue at the target location for 30 seconds, pulsing damage to all enemies every 2 seconds for 30 seconds.
Developer note: This medium-duration area of effect cooldown is designed to bring the pain to enemies who dare doubt the wrath of the White Tiger.
Roll Rank 2 now correctly communicates that it grants an extra charge.
Windwalking tooltip now correctly displays speed increase instead of size change.
Generous Pour, Close to Heart, and Save Them All talents are now implemented.
Mistweaver
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Zen Pulse – Cooldown increased to 30 seconds (was 15 seconds). Damage increased by 80% and healing increased by 50%.
Yu’lon’s Whisper – Healing reduced by 25%.
Spirit of the Crane – Adjusted mana refund to 0.45% (was 0.65%).
Misty Peaks – Enveloping Mists procs now last 2 seconds (was 3 seconds).
Enveloping Mist – Healing reduced by 20%.
Ancient Teachings of the Monastery – Healing reduced to 125% of damage done (was 200%).
Ancient Teachings of the Monastery healing increased by 60% in PvP combat.
Developers’ note: Mistweaver Monk’s damage capabilities have gone up by a significant amount due to the Dragonflight talent system. This adjustment to Ancient Teachings reflects that increased damage potential and is not intended as a large nerf compared to Mistweaver’s current Shadowlands experience with Ancient Teachings. It is likely that further adjustments are needed (for example, some damage going down and Ancient Teaching’s healing going back up), but this should get us in the ballpark for now.
Clouded Focus – Now increases the healing and reduces the mana cost of Enveloping Mist and Vivify by 15% (was 20%).
Unison – Soothing Mist heals a second injured ally within 15 yards for 100% of the amount healed (was 50%).
Awakened Faeline, Misty Peaks, Rapid Diffusion, Invoke Yu’lon’s Enveloping Mist mana reduction, and Ancient Concordance are now implemented.
Zen Reverberation triggers a second Zen Pulse at 50% effectiveness (was 30%).
Accumulating Mist increases Zen Pulse’s damage and healing by 15% per stack (was 10%).
Invoker’s Delight now scales its duration down to 8 seconds when talented into Gift of the Celestials.
Jade Bond’s Gust of Mist buff increased to 25% (was 12%).
Known Issue: Ancient Concordance’s tooltip displays the incorrect target count for Blackout Kick’s cleave. The intended functionality of this is to hit 2 targets with 1 point and 3 targets with 2 points.
Developers’ note: In today’s build, you’ll see an early-access version of the Monk talent trees. Our goal with the class tree is to allow a player to construct different visions of their character and play with the hybrid nature and cheerful mobility that exemplifies a Monk. For Brewmaster, our primary goal was to allow players the flexibility to lean into different flavors – to emphasize a brew-heavy playstyle, or go the way of the wily martial arts master – while also providing situationally-interesting decisions for survivability. For Mistweaver, we want to offer support for both the caster and melee playstyles while maintaining a variety of choices for both builds. We also wanted to take a look at Mistweaver’s multi-target damage profile through returning and new talents such as Zen Pulse and Ancient Concordance. And for Windwalkers, we wanted to allow players the flexibility to focus on different styles of damage dealing, as well as offering opportunities to customize their ability loadout in ways that bring back old friends or lean into focus on specific abilities. We’re excited for Monks to be joining the Dragonflight Alpha and we look forward to hearing your feedback!
Known Issues
There are several talents that are not fully implemented yet. These are tagged with NYI (Not Yet Implemented) in their Talent name.
The Talent Frame background for Mistweaver is incorrectly using Windwalker art. This will be corrected in a later build.
Windwalker
Multiple talents have been moved to allow better flow and decision-making throughout the tree.
Gale Burst has been removed.
Rushing Jade Wind – Damage increased by 33%.
Meridian Strikes – Cooldown reduction increased slightly.
Hit Scheme – Replaced with Hit Combo as intended.
Spiritual Focus – Now works with Serenity.
New Talent: Hardened Soles – Increases critical strike chance and critical strike damage of Blackout Kick.
PALADIN
General
New Ability: Intercession – Petition the Light on the behalf of a fallen ally, restoring spirit to body and allowing then to reenter battle with 60% health and at least 20% mana. 2 second cast time for Retribution and Holy specializations, instant cast and requires 3 Holy Power for Protection specialization.
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Seal of the Crusader damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 15%).
Seal of Reprisal damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).
Afterimage now correctly only triggers on a Word of Glory cast.
Incandescence damage increased by 300%.
Developers’ note: This talent was extremely under tuned and did not feel rewarding as a point investment in the talent tree.
Holy
Developers’ note: The Holy Paladin Talent tree is now enabled in this Alpha build. For Dragonflight, we want to give Holy Paladins more options for caster-focused playstyles by bringing back the Power of the Silver Hand passive effect from the Legion Artifact, in addition to the active button Tyr’s Deliverance.
Protection
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Developers’ note: This week we focused on pathing adjustments for the Class & Protection trees. In the coming weeks, we will be transitioning towards talent iteration and tuning.
Changed positions of Strength of Conviction, Resolute Defender, Faith’s Armor, and Guardian of Ancient Kings.
Added several additional node connections in center section of tree.
Faith’s Armor increased to 10% (was 5%).
Blessed Hammer now correctly overrides Crusader Strike.
Retribution
Final Verdict damage reduced by 6%.
Righteous Verdict damage bonus reduced to 5% (was 15%).
Divine Protection has been added as a choice node with Shield of Vengeance. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
Justicar’s Vengeance now costs 3 Holy Power and deals 7% less damage.
The talent locations of Ashes to Ashes and Divine Toll have been swapped.
Removed Talents
Last Rites
Deemed Unworthy
Swift Crusader
Long Arm of the Law
Developer’s note: We recognize that movement is fun and feels good when attached to short cooldown buttons. That said, our goal for Retribution Paladin is to keep their strengths in removing things that hinder their mobility, or to charge into battle on their Divine Steed, not to give them a short duration burst of movement on a very short cooldown.
Liadrin’s Fury
New Talents
Holy Crusader – Increases mastery by 2%.
Seal of Wrath – Judgment has a 25% chance to cast again and deal extra Holy damage to its target.
Empyrean Endowment – Judgment empowers your next Templar’s Verdict to automatically trigger Divine Storm with 25% more effectiveness. This effect can only occur every 30 seconds.
Executioner’s Wrath – Execution Sentence now instead deals 15% of the damage taken from your abilities to the target and nearby enemies within 8 yards.
Sanctified Ground – Your Consecration is 15% larger, and you cannot be slowed below 80% of normal movement speed within Consecration. This effect lasts for 2 seconds after leaving Consecration.
Sealed Verdict – Your Holy Power spending abilities increase the damage of your next Blade of Justice by 8/16%.
Modified Talents
Highlord’s Judgment now has 2 ranks and increases Judgment damage by 8/16% per rank.
Calm Before the Storm now causes enemies hit by your Divine Storm to take 100% more damage from your Consecration for 8 seconds (was 50%).
Inner Power now grants Holy Power every 12 seconds while you are in combat (was 10 seconds).
Developers’ note: This is aimed to tune the Holy Power generation overall and to balance against Sanctification.
Developer Notes
The area before the 1st gate has been restructured in a way that allows players to bypass the talents that they do not want and save a talent point while trying to go down all 3 sides of the tree. Also, the importance of the new talents such as Timely Judgment and Condemned Blade has been heightened so that players consider them more often when creating a build.
Zeal and Blade of Wrath have been moved up and put before the 1st gate.
Zeal and Blade of Wrath positional changes are aimed to solidify the foundation of Retribution Paladin. The new positioning will allow the players to get these talents in a simpler and more satisfying way for both leveling and end game content.
Crusade and Avenging Wrath: Might choice node has been moved up and put before the 2nd gate. This choice node is now located where Execution Sentence was in the previous build.
Execution Sentence and its improvement node has been moved down and put after the 2nd gate.
The positional changes to Crusade/AW: Might and Execution Sentence are aimed to provide gameplay defining options after the 2nd gate. The change to Execution Sentence will allow new gameplay options and is now heightened with its improvement nodes aimed at both single target and AOE situations.
The area after the 2nd gate has been reconstructed in a way that aims to increase build diversity and choice.
Known Issues
Not all rank upgrades are implemented.
Unlearning the Crusade talent while also having the Avenging Wrath talent from the Class tree will cause you to keep Crusade and it’s override effect on Avenging Wrath.* This can be fixed via relogging and will be corrected in a future Alpha build.
PRIEST
General
Power Word: Shield – Now a 7.5 seconds cooldown reduced by Haste. Absorption increased by 80%. No longer applies Weakened Soul.
Class Tree
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Depth of the Shadows – Purge the Wicked / Shadow Word: Pain increase the healing of your next Shadow Mend by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
Death and Madness has been redesigned – Resets the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death if the target is not killed while below 20% health. Generates 30 Insanity over 4 seconds if the target dies within 7 seconds.
New Talent: Inspiration – Critical heals from Flash Heal, Penance, and Heal grant Inspiration, reducing physical damage taken by 5% for 15 seconds.
New Talent: Void Tendrils – Roots all enemies within 8 yards for 20 seconds (6 seconds in PvP combat). Void Tendrils can be killed to break the root.
New Talent: Blessed Recovery – After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, Blessed Recovery heals you for 20% of the damage taken over 6 seconds. Additional critical hits taken during the effect increase the healing received.
Translucent Image – Now lasts the full duration of Fade. Buff consolidated into Fade to reduce aura squares.
New Talent: Phantasm – Fade removes all movement impairing effects when used.
New Talent: Angelic Bulwark – Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.
Shadow Mend – Now a 15 second cooldown. Healing amount increased by 20%.
New Talent: Move with Grace – Leap of Faith’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Throes of Pain – Now restores 1% mana for Holy/Disc and 5 Insanity for Shadow.
New Talent: Rhapsody – For every 5 seconds that you do not cast Holy Nova, the healing and damage of your next Holy Nova is increased by 10%. This effect can stack up to 20 times.
New Talent: Sheer Terror – Increases the amount of damage required to break your Psychic Scream by 100%.
Cleric’s Armaments – Removed and merged into Tools of the Cloth.
Tools of the Cloth – For 12 seconds after casting Power Word: Shield, you deal 10% additional damage and healing with Smite and Holy Nova.
New Talent: Manipulation – Your Smite, Penance, Holy Fire, Mind Blast, and Mind Spike casts reduce the cooldown of Mindgames by 0.5/1.0 seconds.
Holy Word: Life – No longer gives backlash to the player. If a target is healed below 35% health, the healing amount is increased by 400% and the cooldown of Holy Word: Life is reduced by 25 seconds.
New Talent: Shattered Perceptions – Mindgames lasts an additional 2 seconds, deals an additional 25% damage, and reverses 25% additional damage or healing.
New Talent: Improved Purify – Purify additionally removes all Disease effects (Disc/Holy only).
New Talent: Spell Warding – Now also reduces all magic damage taken by 3%.
New Talent: Apathy – Your Mind Blast critical strikes reduce your target’s movement speed by 75% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Fade – Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 5 seconds/10 seconds.
Shadow Word: Death – Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Psychic Voice – Cooldown reduction reduced to 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Void Shield – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Improved Mass Dispel – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Void Shift – Moved from PvP Talents to talent tree.
Psychic Scream – Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
Purify – Baseline for Holy and Discipline. Only dispels Magic effects.
Shadow Word: Pain – Duration increased to 16 seconds to offset the loss of a rank 2 spell (was 12 seconds).
Eternal Rest – Reduces the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death by 12 seconds.
Developers’ note: Was Shadow Word: Death Rank 2. Repurposed as a PvP Talent.
Discipline
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Rapture – Causes Power Word: Shield to have no cooldown and increases its absorption by 30% (was 200%).
Atonement – Can now be applied by Renew and Flash Heal.
Developers’ note: Now that Power Word: Shield has a cooldown, we’re promoting Renew to an Atonement applicator.
New Talent: Make Amends – When Penance deals damage, the duration of Atonement on yourself is increased by 1 second and when your Penance heals, the duration of Atonement on your target is increased by 1 second.
New Talent: Divine Aegis – Critical heals create a protective shield around your target, absorbing 8%/15% of the amount healed. Lasts 15 seconds. Critical heals with Power Word: Shield absorb 8%/15% additional damage.
New Talent: Aegis of Wrath – Power Word: Shield absorbs 30% additional damage, but the absorb amount decays by 3% every 1 second.
Exaltation – Increases the duration of Rapture and Spirit Shell by 3 seconds (was 1 second).
New Talent: Bright Pupil – Reduces the cooldown of Power Word: Radiance by 5 seconds.
New Talent: Enduring Luminescence – Power Word: Radiance applies Atonement at an additional 15% of its normal duration.
New Talent: Painful Punishment – Each Penance bolt extends the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked on enemies hit by 0.7 seconds.
New Talent: Improved Shadow Word: Pain – Increases the damage of Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Borrowed Time – Casting Power Word: Shield increases your Haste by 4%/8% for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Train of Thought – Flash Heal, Renew, and Shadow Mend reduce the cooldown of Power Word: Shield by 1 second. Smite reduces the cooldown of Penance by 0.5 seconds.
New Talent: Balance in All Things – Your damaging Shadow spells increase the damage of your next Holy spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%. Your damaging Holy spells increase the damage of your next Shadow spell cast within 6 seconds by 15%.
New Talent: Resplendent Light – Light’s Wrath deals an additional 2%/4% damage per ally affected by your Atonement.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Your Smite, Mind Blast, and Penance casts reduce the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Expiation – Increases the damage of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 10%/20%. Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death consume 3 seconds/6 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked, instantly dealing that damage.
New Talent: Wrath, Unleashed – Reduces the cast time of Light’s Wrath by 1 second and increases its critical strike chance by 15%. Smite deals 40% additional damage for 15 seconds after casting Light’s Wrath.
New Talent: Weal and Woe – Your Penance bolts increase the damage of your next Smite by 8% or the absorb of your next Power Word: Shield by 3%. Stacks up to 7 times.
Power of the Dark Side – Increases the effectiveness of Penance by 30% (was 50%).
Light’s Promise – Name changed (was Power Word: Radiance Rank 2).
Protector of the Frail – Reduces the cooldown of Pain Suppression by 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
Pain Transformation – Heals for 12% of maximum health and applies Atonement (was 8% of max health).
Malicious Scission – Increases the duration of Schism by 3 seconds (was 50%).
Purge the Wicked – Now deals Radiant damage (was Fire).
Penance – Now a baseline ability.
Atonement – Removed Shadow Word: Death from the Atonement blacklist, meaning it can now Atone.
Holy
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Revitalizing Prayers – Prayer of Healing has a 15%/30% chance to apply a 6 second Renew to allies it heals.
New Talent: Prayerful Litany – Prayer of Healing restores an additional 30% health to the most injured ally it affects.
New Talent: Empowered Renew – Renew instantly heals your target for 10% of its total periodic effect.
New Talent: Rapid Recovery – Increases the healing done by Renew by 35%, but decreases its base duration by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Desperate Times – Increases healing by 6%/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health.
New Talent: Spirited Litany – After your Prayer of Mending heals 80/40 times, gain Power Infusion for 10 seconds.
New Talent: Archbishop Benedictus’ Restitution – After Spirit of Redemption expires, you will revive at up to 100% health, based on your effectiveness during Spirit of Redemption. After reviving, you cannot benefit from Spirit of Redemption for 10 min.
New Talent: Holy Mending – When Prayer of Mending jumps to a target affected by your Renew, that target is instantly healed.
New Talent: Everlasting Light – Heal restores up to 15% additional health based on your missing mana.
New Talent: Say Your Prayers – Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to not consume a charge when it jumps to a new target.
Divine Word – Sanctuary can no longer be moved.
New Talent: Healing Chorus – Your Renew healing increases the healing done by your next Circle of Healing by 2%, stacking up to 25 times.
New Talent: Orison – Circle of Healing heals 1 additional ally and its cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.
New Talent: Crisis Management – Increases the critical strike chance of Flash Heal and Heal by 8%/15%.
New Talent: Prismatic Echoes – Increases the healing done by your Mastery: Echo of Light by 15%/30%.
New Talent: Prayers of the Virtuous – Prayer of Mending gains 1/2 additional charges.
New Talent: Pontifex – Critical heals from Flash Heal and Heal increase your healing done by your next word spell by 10%, stacking up to 2 times.
New Talent: Harmonious Apparatus – Circle of Healing reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify, Prayer of Mending reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity, and Holy Fire reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise by 2 seconds/4 seconds.
New Talent: Lightweaver – Flash Heal reduces the cast time of your next Heal within 20 seconds by 30% and increases its healing done by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.
Heal – Now a baseline ability.
Guardians of the Light – Guardian Spirit summons a spirit to watch over you in addition to your target.
Sanctified Prayers – Casting Holy Word: Sanctify increases healing done by Prayer of Healing by 10% for 15 seconds.
Benediction – Your Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to leave a Renew on each target it heals (was 25%).
Renewed Faith – Your healing is increased by 8% on targets with Renew (was 10%).
Miracle Worker – Holy Word: Serenity gains an additional charge.
Shadow
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
New Talent: Mind Spike – Blasts the target for Shadowfrost damage, but extinguishes your shadow damage-over-time effects from the target in the process. Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times. Generates 6 Insanity.
New Talent: Mind Flay: Insanity – Casting Devouring Plague transforms your Mind Flay spell into Mind Flay: Insanity for 5 seconds. Mind Flay: Insanity deals 80% more damage than Mind Flay.
Mind Sear – No longer generates Insanity. Now costs 25 Insanity per tick to channel.
Tithe Evasion – Shadow Word: Death deals 75% less damage to you.
Mental Fortitude – Devouring Plague now triggers this. Is now capped at 10% maximum health.
Rot and Wither renamed to Mental Decay. Now guaranteed to extend Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
Psychic Link – Now also occurs from Mind Spike.
Monomania – Also increases the critical chance of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch.
New Talent: Painbreaker’s Psalm – Shadow Word: Death consumes 4 seconds/8 seconds of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch, instantly dealing that damage to the target and generating up to 10/20 Insanity.
New Talent: Lunacy – Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 10. Reduces the Insanity drained when Mind Sear deals damage by 5.
New Talent: Dark Void – Unleashes an explosion of dark energy around the target, dealing Shadow damage and applying Shadow Word: Pain to your target and 7 nearby enemies. Generates 20 Insanity.
New Talent: Tormented Spirits – Your Shadow Word: Pain damage has a 5% chance to create a shadowy version of yourself that floats towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch. Critical strikes increase the chance to 10%.
New Talent: Mind Melt – Mind Spike reduces cast time of your next Mind Blast by 50%, stacking up 2 times. Lasts 6 seconds.
New Talent: Surge of Darkness – Your Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague damage have a chance to cause your next Mind Spike not to consume your damage over time effects, be instant, and deal 50% additional damage. Stacks up to 3 times.
New Talent: Dark Evangelism – Your Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Void Torrent damage increases the damage of your periodic Shadow effects by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times.
New Talent: Dark Ascension – Consumes Dark Evangelism to increase the damage of your non-periodic Shadow abilities by 4% per stack consumed. Lasts 18 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
New Talent: Maddening Touch – Vampiric Touch has a 50%/100% chance to generate 1 Insanity each time it deals damage.
New Talent: Whispers of the Damned – Your Mind Blast and Mind Spike critical strikes generate an additional 3/5 Insanity.
New Talent: Piercing Shadows – Your Shadow damage spell casts increase the Shadow damage you deal by 0.5%/1.0% for 25 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
New Talent: Pain of Death – Increases the damage dealt by Shadow Word: Death by 25%. Shadow Word: Death deals 20% of its damage to all targets affected by your Shadow Word: Pain within 40 yards.
New Talent: Derangement – Increases the initial damage of Devouring Plague by 75%. Mind Sear deals damage 20% faster.
New Talent: Fiending Dark – Critical damage from Mind Spike and Mind Flay reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 seconds/6 seconds and Mindbender by 1 seconds/2 seconds.
New Talent: Mastermind – Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Spike and Mind Blast by 3%/6% and increases their critical strike damage bonus by 15%/30%.
Mind Flay – Now overrides Smite.
Vampiric Touch – Now a baseline ability.
Shadowform – Holy spells no longer cancel Shadowform.
Mind Sear – Damage increased by 80%.
Dispersion – Now also heals the player for 25% of their maximum health over its duration.
Intangibility – Dispersion heals you for an additional 25% of your maximum health over its duration and its cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
Shadow Crash – Now applies Vampiric Touch to 4 targets.
Void Eruption – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 90 seconds).
Surrender to Madness – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 90 seconds).
Void Bolt – Cooldown increased to 9 seconds and damage increased by 23% (was 4.5 seconds).
Hungering Void – Debuff duration increased to 12 seconds (was 6 seconds). Damage over time extension increased to 2 seconds and 4 seconds on critical strikes (was 1 second and 2 seconds).
Vampiric Insight – No longer gives a charge to Mind Blast passively.
ROGUE
SHAMAN
Elemental
Earthquake – Damage reduced by 25%.
Chain Lightning – Damage increased by 25%. (Elemental only)
Lava Beam – Damage increased by 25%.
Lightning Bolt – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
Lava Burst – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
Earth Shock – Damage reduced by 20%.
Elemental Blast – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
Lightning Rod – Deals 20% of Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt damage (was 25%).
New Talent – Heat Wave: Casting Primordial Wave triggers Lava Surge immediately and every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.
Primal Storm Elemental no longer moves slower than other Elementals after engaging in combat.
Earthquake damage reduced by 40%.
Developers’ note: This is not intended to be a nerf, but a damage profile adjustment. Earthquake dominates Elemental’s AoE damage profile in Shadowlands. We’ve also added talents in Dragonflight that improve Earthquake’s output such as Unrelenting Calamity, Eye of the Storm, and Mountains Will Fall which would have continued this trend. The goal is to allow for abilities like Chain Lightning, Lightning Rod, Frost Shock (with Electrified Shocks), Flame Shock, and Lava Burst to contribute more towards Elemental’s AoE.
Rolling Magma’s Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload damage now reduces the cooldown of Primordial Wave by 0.2 seconds/0.5 seconds (was from 0.5 seconds/1 second).
Developers’ note: The interactions are with Primordial Wave and Ascendance are intentional, but the cooldown reduction was initially tuned too high.
Enhancement
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Stormstrike now replaces Primal Strike.
Doom Winds now does some minor damage when you activate it.
Ice Strike’s Frost Shock buff now highlights Frost Shock
Alpha Wolf now works with Chain Lightning, rather than Crash Lightning.
Improved Stormbringer renamed Stormblast.
Unruly Winds chance raised to 100%.
Ascendance is now a choice node with Deeply Rooted Elements.
Thorim’s Invocation now remembers whether you last used Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, and will use that spell instead of always Lightning Bolt.
Chain Lightning Rank 2 has been added into the Chain Lightning/Crash Lightning interactions and is no longer a talent.
New Talent: Crashing Storms – Chain Lightning jumps to 2 additional targets, and also increases Crash Lightning damage by 40%.
Forceful winds is now 45% damage per stack (was 35%).
Gathering Storms is now a 1-point talent (was 2). Value increased to 15%, and there’s a maximum of 10 stacks of Gathering Storms.
Hot Hand is now a 2-point talent (was 1).
Elemental Assault adjusted to be 10/20% Stormstrike damage (was 7/15%). Maelstrom weapon chance is now 50/100% per rank.
Lava Burst is affected by Enhancement mastery.
Primal Primer is no longer an option on the tree.
Hailstorm now gains bonus damage from up to 10 Maelstrom Weapon charges spent to work better with Overflowing Maelstrom. The bonus targets is still capped at 5.
Nature’s Fury now works correctly with the immediate damage from Ascendance.
Feral Spirits is now a 90 second cooldown.
Elemental Spirits no longer reduces Feral Spirit cooldown.
Restoration
Water Totem Mastery – Consuming Tidal Waves reduces the cooldown of Cloudburst, Healing Stream, Healing Tide, Mana Spring, Mana Tide, and Poison Cleansing Totem by 0.5 seconds (was 0.25 seconds).
Cloudburst Totem now converts 30% of stored healing (was 20%) and cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Developers’ note: With some new talents that interact with Cloudburst Totem like Call of the Elements, Totemic Surge, and Totemic Focus, we feel its effectiveness needs to be decreased. We started with its healing effectiveness initially but after some feedback believe it’s more important for each totem cast to feel meaningful rather than having more uses of the totem.
Developers’ note: With the Shaman talent trees in Dragonflight, we wanted to hone in on some core concepts that are unique to the class. Totems have long been a special thing for Shaman, and we’re giving some new options to manipulate your totems position, radius, duration, cleanse poisons, or even potentially reset the cooldown. We’re bringing back Alpha Wolf for Enhancement Shaman, spreading some Stormkeeper functionality to Restoration Shaman, and trying out a new variation of Elemental Blast for Elemental Shaman, where it replaces Earth Shock as a more expensive Maelstrom Spender. All three of the Shaman specializations have a distinct style of play, and we’re hoping the new talents allow you to focus on your important totems, utility, and style of damage or healing you enjoy.
WARLOCK
General Changes
Spell Lock in the Talent Tree
With Dragonflight, we’ve removed Spell Lock from Felhunters and Spell Lock is now available for Warlocks to learn themselves. With this change, we are aiming to allow for more pet diversity in content where Felhunters feel required like dungeons and PvP.
Dark Soul is not in the talent tree for Dragonflight intentionally. There are a few reasons for this:
All Warlock specs have access to a powerful summon cooldown that interacts with the rest of their spells where Dark Soul increases a stat by a large amount. We prefer to keep the interactive spell.
With cooldown stacking, a high percentage of overall damage is boiled down to the cooldown window. While this can be useful for bursting, but damage output outside of this window tends to be lackluster.
Across the classes there are new active spells which we are both excited about and equally cautious of causing keybinding issues by adding. Finding times to pull back on active spells is something we’re on the lookout for.
Shadow Bolt and Incinerate base damage has been increased. We’ve increased the damage of Shadow Bolt and Incinerate significantly and lowered modifiers from various talents. Our goal is for these spells to feel more powerful without having to ramp to see benefits from casting it.
Shadowflame is returning; however, we don’t want a short-ranged cone spell to be a rotational for a caster, so we’ve removed the damage from the ability.
Class Talents
New
Abyss Walker – Using Demonic Circle: Teleport or your Demonic Gateway reduces all damage you take by 4% for 10 seconds.
Gorefiend’s Resolve – Targets resurrected with Soulstone resurrect with 40% additional health and 30% additional mana.
Fel Synergy – Soul Leech also heals you for 25% and your pet for 50% of the absorption it grants.
Resolute Barrier – Attacks received that deal at least 5% of your health decrease Unending Resolve’s cooldown by 10 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds.
Soul Armor – When your health drops below 35%, the percentage of damage shared via your Soul Link is increased by an additional 5%.
Demonic Resilience – Reduces the chance you will be critically struck by 4%. All damage your primary demon takes is reduced by 15%.
Summon Soulkeeper (was Summon Jailer) – Summons a Soulkeeper that periodically blasts nearby enemies.
Inquisitor’s Gaze– Summons an Inquisitor’s Eye that attacks your enemies.
Removed
Pact of the Annihilan
Pact of the Eredar
Pact of the Imp Mother
Decimating Bolt
Dimensional Rift
Changes
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Claw of Endereth is now a 1-point talent.
Soul Conduit refund chance reduced to 10% at max rank (was 15%).
Affliction
New
Malefic Affliction – Malefic Rapture causes your active Unstable Affliction to deal 10% additional damage, up to 30%, for the rest of its duration.
Doom Blossom – If Corruption damages a target affected by your Unstable Affliction, it has a 10% chance per stack of Malefic Affliction to deal Shadow damage to nearby enemies.
Dread Touch – If Malefic Affliction exceeds 3 stacks, the target instead takes 20% additional damage from your damage over time effects for 6 seconds.
Grim Reach – When Darkglare deals damage, it deals 50% of that damage to all enemies affected by your damage over time effects.
Soul-Eater’s Gluttony – Whenever Unstable Affliction deals damage, the cooldown of Soul Rot is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
Removed
Malefic Wrath
Deathbolt
Death Dealer
Pact of the Nathrezim
Deliberate Malice
Changes
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Sacrolash’s Dark Strike now extends Curses by 0.5/1 second (was 1/2 seconds).
Creeping Death no longer decreases the duration of Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, or Siphon Life.
Soul Flame’s icon has been changed.
Vile Taint’s cooldown is now 30 seconds (was 20 seconds).
Calamitous Crescendo is now a 2-point talent.
Vile Taint has been reworked – Unleashes a vile explosion at the target location, dealing Shadow damage over 10 seconds to 8 enemies within 10 yards and applies Agony and Curse of Exhaustion to them.
Developers’ note: With this change, we aim to allow Affliction to ramp up faster in dungeon gameplay especially in combination with talents like Agonizing Corruption and Sow the Seeds.
Deathbolt is now a base talent.
Destruction
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Combusting Engine – Replaced with Explosive Potential.
New Talent: Explosive Potential – Reduces the cooldown of Conflagrate by 2 seconds.
Chaos Shards – Replaced with Scalding Flames.
New Talent: Scalding Flames – Increases the damage of Immolate by 13%/25%.
Infernal Brand – Your Infernal’s melee attacks cause its target to take 3%/6% increased damage from its Immolation, stacking up to 15 times (was 15%/30%).
Rolling Havoc – Now stacks up to 5 times (was 10) and lasts 5 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Backdraft – Now affects Soul Fire.
Chaos Bolt – Damage reduced by 30%.
Incinerate – Damage reduced by 30%.
Dimensional Rift – Damage reduced by 30%.
Immolate – Damage reduced by 17%.
Rain of Fire – Damage reduced by 17%.
Shadowburn – Damage reduced by 50%.
Conflagrate – Damage reduced by 15%.
Soul Fire – Damage reduced by 25%.
Fire and Brimstone – Incinerate now hits all enemies near your target for 13%/25% damage (was 7%/15%).
Mastery: Chaotic Energies – No longer reduces the Warlock’s damage taken.
Developers’ note: With its access to powerful defensive talents in the class tree, Destruction Warlocks do not need additional survival bonuses.
Backdraft now affects Soul Fire.
Mayhem
Developers’ note: We are exploring an alternative to Havoc called Mayhem. It’s a passive that gives your single target spells a chance to deal 60% of its damage to a random nearby target. The goal with this talent is to give a more passive two-target option for players who would like to opt out of Havoc gameplay. For tuning, we intend for active Havoc gameplay to be rewarded over playing with Mayhem.
Demonology
New
Reign of Tyranny – Active Wild Imps grant 1 stack of Demonic Servitude. Active greater demons grant 2 stacks of Demonic Servitude. Demonic Tyrant deals 3% additional damage for each stack of Demonic Servitude active at the time of his summon.
Guillotine – Your Felguard hurls his axe towards the target location, erupting when it lands and dealing Shadowflame damage every 1 second for 8 seconds to nearby enemies. While unarmed, your Felguard’s basic attacks deal damage to all nearby enemies and attacks 50% faster.
Removed
Demonic Consumption
Changes
Ner’zhul’s Volition has been updated – When Nether Portal summons a demon, it has a 2/4% chance per Soul Shard spent to summon an additional demon.
Nether Portal’s cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds (was 2.5 seconds).
The Expendables and Stolen Power have swapped places and moved to row 9.
WARRIOR
Class Tree Developer Notes
This week we have a fair number of bug fixes as we start to get to a point where the class tree is mostly complete.
We’ve customized a few talents to be more spec specific, so they are clearer and more useful in their intention, such as Honed Reflexes, Barbaric Training, and Crushing Force.
We’ve heard your feedback regarding Massacre and Sudden Death, so we’ve reverted these changes and made adjustments elsewhere to ensure DPS is still in line with intentions.
Massacre is now located on the spec tree for Arms and Protection where there’s a higher opportunity cost per talent point with regards to damage throughput that in the class tree.
We have some work to do on the nodes beyond the 20-point gate still, specifically related to Shockwave, Spear of Bastion, and Thunderous Roar.
We’re also looking at customizing a few more talents based on your spec to make them clearer in their function and purpose for each spec.
Warrior has undergone a tuning pass to bring it more in line with the other classes.
This week we’ve experimented a bit more with the Warrior class tree, trying to build in more flexibility and choices throughout the middle of the tree. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this comparative to previous weeks.
Stances – No update here, still working on some ideas on our end.
We’re experimenting with nodes specific to specs within the Warrior class tree. So, for example, War Machine has different values per spec, this gives us better control of balance and grants more tools to enhance what makes each specialization unique.
Signet of Tormented Kings – We’ve added four new nodes in place of Signet, two for Arms and two for Fury and Protection will get its own variants in a future update. These are not final but we’re feeling good about the general approach and would like to hear your feedback on these new talents.
Added a few placeholder nodes where there will be new choices in the future to give players an idea of what the complete tree will look like.
We’ve had a couple of weeks of big updates for Warriors and want to set expectations that next week’s update will be light.
We’re feeling pretty satisfied with the class tree structure but are still experimenting with placements and the content of specific talent nodes while taking onboard internal and community feedback.
We’ve seen a new iteration of the class tree each week during the three weeks since the first release of the Warrior tree. In the version going live today there’s the most options due to more pathways and interconnectivity. We’d love to hear from you if you prefer this, or the more streamlined simple tree with obvious pathways that released initially.
We want to spend a little more time with stances to try to achieve a version where each feel useful and desirable for different reasons, but we have had a fallback plan since embarking down this path of having an offensive and defensive stance. Fury and Arms would both start at the offensive node and Protection would start at the Defensive node.
Thunderous Roar – We are working on this and the subsequent talent node, which will be a choice node internally and we hope to update on this soon.
Signet of Tormented Kings – As above, we’re working internally on this, and we hope to have an update soon. We have ideas but haven’t implemented them yet.
Shockwave – There has been some feedback about wanting Shockwave to be lower down the tree and easier to obtain. We’re quite confident that if we put it before the 20 points requirement that every Warrior both DPS and Protection would have it. That isn’t our intention, an AOE stun on fairly short cooldown is a powerful ability and we feel there needs to be some opportunity cost to obtain this. We’d like Shockwave’s subsequent node to be a choice so expect a new modifier here in the future.
Rend – Our intention with the introduction of Rend to the class talent tree was that Arms and Protection would likely often choose it and that Fury would very rarely. We’ve seen higher uptake and reliance on Rend than we’d like so for this week we’ve moved it to the Arms and Protection trees as a test. We’d like to hear your feedback on this change.
There are several very simple nodes on various talent trees, including those of other classes. These serve multiple functions, and we’ll briefly detail some of the reasoning behind their existence.
When looking at the talent trees for a class there’s a huge amount of information to absorb and learn. Beyond that, there’s also many choices for players to make. Having some talents that are simple and obvious in their effect helps to lower the overall complexity and functions as a guide for what abilities and stats are important for each specialization.
However, we’ve heard your feedback about the secondary stat nodes and have been working to make them more interesting. There are some examples of this in the Fury tree this week.
Class Tree
Removed the lockout period from Concussive Blows.
Fixed the various Tormented memories procing themselves and granting extra durations. They should all be working as intended now.
Weapon specialization nodes now only appear relevant to their related specialization (e.g. Two-Handed Specialization only appears on the Arms version of the class tree).
New Protection Talent Variant: Crushing Force – Shield Slam deals and additional 5% damage and deals 5% increased critical strike damage per rank.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Arms Variant) – Slam and Whirlwind now deal 40% more damage but now cost 5 more rage.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Fury Variant) – Slam and Whirlwind damage increased by 20% and their critical strike damage is also increased by 10%.
New Talent: Barbaric Training (Protection Variant) – Revenge deals 40% more damage but now costs 10 more rage.
Rumbling Earth now also increases the range of Shockwave by 6 yards.
New Talent: Sonic Boom – Shockwave deals 350% increased damage and will always deal critical strike damage.
New Arms Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Overpower reduced by 1 second and cooldown of Pummel reduced by 0.5 seconds.
New Fury Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Raging Blow reduced by 1 second and cooldown of Pummel reduced by 0.5 seconds.
New Protection Talent Variant: Honed Reflexes – Cooldown of Shield Slam and Pummel reduced by 1 second.
For Arms and Protection specializations Massacre and Sudden Death have switched places between the class and spec trees and increases the execute threshold up to 35% again.
Sudden Death procs per minute is now 1.7 (was 1.5).
Sudden Death should now refund rage again.
Quick Thinking – Now also increases your auto-attack speed by 2.5% per rank.
Cruel Strikes – Now also grants an 2.5% critical damage per rank for Overpower, Raging Blow, and Revenge respective to the relevant specialization.
Arms and Protection Execute damage reduced by 5%.
Spear of Bastion cooldown increased by 50% but instant damage also increased by 50%.
Thunderous Roar Damage no longer has a hidden undocumented crit damage bonus.
Thunderous Roar now ticks every 2 seconds (was 3 seconds) and has a duration of 8 seconds (was 9 seconds). It now also deals a total of 160% attack power (was 135% across its duration).
Thunderous Aftershocks has been redesigned and renamed: Thunderous Words – Now increases the duration of Dragon Roar’s Bleed effect by 4 seconds and increases the damage of your bleed effects by 20%.
Changed some pathing and node positions to allow for more flexible choices.
Cruel Strikes now grants 1.5% Critical Strike chance per rank. This will be changed in a future build.
Quick Thinking now grants 1.5% Haste per rank. This will be changed in a future build
Reinforced Plates now increases your armor by 15% per rank (was 30% of your Strength).
Removed Dauntless Duelist from the talent tree.
Frothing Berserker now applies to only Rampage, Mortal Strike, Cleave and Revenge.
Overwhelming rage is now 2 ranks that grant 15 max rage each.
Crushing Force is now 2 ranks and grants 30% damage and 7.5% crit chance to Slam per rank.
Removed Signet of Tormented Kings.
New Fury Talent: Memory of a Tormented Berserker – Activating Avatar or Recklessness casts the other at reduced effectiveness. Effects lasts 4 seconds.
New Fury Talent: Memory of a Tormented Titan – Activating Avatar or Reckless casts Odyn’s Fury at reduced effectiveness. Effects last 4 seconds.
New Fury Talent: Memory of a Tormented Warlord – Activating Avatar or Thunderous Roar casts Recklessness at reduced effectiveness.
New Arms Talent: Memory of a Tormented Blademaster – Activating Avatar or Bladestorm the other at reduced effectiveness. Effects last 4 seconds.
War Machine is now split into different versions per spec to allow for different values for each.
Massacre now adds 5% to execute range rather than 15% for Arms and Protection to allow for more execute modifiers.
Massacred now reduces the cooldown of Execute for Fury by 1.5 seconds.
Avatar now generates 20 rage.
Elysian Might should now correctly work outside of the Shadowlands.
Shattering Throw is now a choice node so players can choose between the existing immunity break ability and a lower cooldown variant that is instant but no longer breaks immunities.
Honed Reflexes changed to reduce cooldowns by 0.5 seconds rather than 1 second.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization now grants 5% increased damage (was 10%).
Dual Wield Specialization now grants 5% increased damage (was 10%).
One-Handed Weapon Specialization now grants 5% increased damage (was 10%).
Armored to the Teeth now grants Strength equal to 3.5% of your Armor.
Furious Blows has been redesigned to now give 5% auto attack speed.
Changed some pathing and node positions to encourage more flexible build choices.
Spear of Bastion – Should now work correctly outside of the Shadowlands.
Elysian Might – Should now work correctly outside of the Shadowlands.
Honed Reflexes – Now reduces cooldowns by 1.0 second (was 1.5 seconds) and reduces the cooldown of Raging Blow (was Bloodthirst).
New Talent: Menace – Intimidating Shout will knock back all nearby enemies except your primary target and cause them all to cower in fear for 15 seconds (was flee).
Crushing Force has been redesigned – Slam deals an additional 30% damage and it has a 10% increased critical strike chance.
Concussive Blows – Now reduces the cooldown of Pummel by 1.0 second (was 1.5 seconds).
Titanic Throw – Correctly applies deep wounds to all targets when combined with Improved Heroic Throw.
Impending Victory – Heals for 30% (was 40%).
Thunder Clap – Costs 30 Rage for Arms or Fury (still costs 0 Rage for Protection).
Rend – Removed from the class tree.
New Talent: Concussive Blows – Reduce the cooldown of Pummel by 1.5 seconds and successfully interrupting an enemy increases the damage you deal against them by 5% for 10 seconds. This may only occur once every 30 seconds.
Rearranged some talent nodes and created more interweaving paths to try and create more build variety.
Removed Die by the Sword from the Class tree and returned it to the Arms tree.
Improved Heroic Throw should correctly override Heroic Throw.
Reduced ranks of Two-Handed and Dual-Wield Specializations to 1.
Arms Developer Notes
Generally happy with where Arms is at, moving forward changes are likely to be small and/or tuning based.
Fixed various bugs and triggers so more things should be working correctly in conjunction with each other.
We’ve added some extra nodes to try and allow Bladestorm to feel more useful in various situations.
The left side of the tree had too many 2-point nodes, so we’ve reduced this to allow for more choices.
We did a lot of work this week on rage generation, we want this to feel a bit different that it does in the current live game, we generally don’t want you to feel rage starved but we also don’t want you to be overflowing with it. So, we’ve taken steps to ramp down how much rage you are obtaining while still trying to allow you to use your abilities when you want and need.
We’re still planning to put some more time into the central branch of the tree which is still a bit sparse.
We’ve also added some placeholder nodes to the Bladestorm choices to give players an idea of what’s to come.
We’re feeling confident in the general structure, but we will likely add some extra talents to the middle of the tree where it feels a little bit sparse.
Sharpened Blade and Blunt Instruments – As with the simple talents mentioned earlier in this update, having some guidance from talents rather than everything being wide open can be helpful for some of our less knowledgeable players. We’re aware of the polarizing feedback here, but we want to get this in front of more players throughout the Alpha and Beta before we decide if it needs to be removed. If it doesn’t work out as we hope, we’re happy to change it.
We’re looking at changing the Bladestorm subsequent talents into choice nodes to give some more options for players to experiment with.
Colossus Smash and Warbreaker – We’ve seen some feedback regarding why these are separate talents and require an investment of two talent points. 30% increased damage with the option to apply to multiple targets on a fairly short cooldown is a massive effect. It is worth far more than the average talent, especially for those located before the level 20 gate and we feel it is fair to be split into separate components as it currently is in the live game.
There are quite a lot of survivability options and improvements for Warriors in the class tree, but each DPS spec has historically had a major cooldown. For Arms it is Die by the Sword, so you are now purposely forced into pathing through it and one of its subsequent nodes in order to ensure you have a minimum of some survivability.
Arms
New Talent: Gathering Storm – While Bladestorming every 1 second you gain 5% movement speed and 5% Strength, stacking. Lasts 6 seconds.
New Talent: Dance of Death – If your Bladestorm kills an enemy your next Bladestorm lasts 3 seconds longer.
Unhinged now correctly triggers outside of the Shadowlands.
Unhinged, Gathering Storm, and Merciless Bonegrinder now trigger correctly from various Whirlwind sources.
Impale is now 1 point and grants 10% increased critical damage (was 7.5% per point).
Critical Thinking now grants 2.5% Execute critical damage per rank instead of Cleave and Whirlwind.
Juggernaut now lasts 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Fatality should now always hit unless the target is immune or due to specific encounter mechanics.
Bloodsurge chance to trigger increased to 20% (was 10%).
Bloodletting now causes your Bleed effects to last for 6 seconds long.
Removed Weapon requirements from Sharpened Blades and Concussive Blows.
Concussive Blows now correctly effects the damage dealt by Warbreaker.
Concussive Blows now correctly increases the duration of the Colossus Smash effect by 3 seconds, and Warbreaker gain and additional 20% damage.
Mortal Strike damage reduced to 174% of attack power to allow for talents modifying it (was 194%).
Sharpened Blades now deals 10% increased critical damage and increases Execute’s chance to crit by 5%.
Sharpened Blades now only effects the critical damage of Mortal Strike and Execute.
Impale now grants 7.5% increased critical damage per rank instead of 10%.
Exploit the Weakness modifies Tactician by 1% (was 1.6%).
Battlelord – Rage reduction changed to 10 (was 15) and now a 30% chance to reset Mortal Strike.
Lowered the chance for Bloodsurge to trigger to 10% (was 25%).
Bloodborne now grants 7.5% increased bleed damage per rank.
Bloodletting now increases the duration of your bleeds by 3 seconds and increases critical strike chance of bleeds by 5%.
Sudden Death procs are no longer free and now cost rage.
Chance to trigger Sudden Death reduced slightly.
Overpower reduced to 97% of attack power to allow for talents modifying it (was 117%).
Dreadnaught damage reduced to 31% of attack power (was 46%).
Execute’s damage has been reduced to 132% attack power to allow for talents that improve it (was 170%).
Rend reduced to 115% of attack power to allow for talents that improve it (was 133%).
Deft Experience – Now increases Mastery by 1.5% and also increases the damage of Rend’s initial strike by 50% per rank.
Valor in Victory – Increases Versatility by 1.5% and now reduces the cooldown of Die by the Sword by 15 seconds per rank.
Critical Thinking – Now increases critical strike chance by 1.5% and now also increases the critical strike damage of Whirlwind and Cleave by 10% per rank.
Changed some pathing and the position of some nodes so that players are much more likely to take some healing/utility nodes.
Warbreaker – No longer incorrectly replaces Execute and does not require 20 talent points to unlock.
Storm of Swords – No longer incorrectly requires 20 talent points to unlock.
Fracture – Now causes Rend, Deep Wounds and Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effects to instantly expire and deal all remaining damage over time.
Skullsplitter – Cooldown increased to 30 seconds (was 21 seconds).
Bloodletting – Also increases the critical strike chance of bleed effects by 10%.
Die by the Sword – Should now correctly cost a talent point.
Bloodborne – Now 2 ranks and each rank increases the damage of Deep Wounds, Rend and Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effects by 10%.
Barbaric Training – Removed from the talent tree.
Skull Banner – Should now correctly cost a talent point.
Deadly Calm – Removed from the tree for now, iterating on a better version that will be more desired by players.
Fueled by Violence – Increased heal amount to 50% (was 30%).
Reaping Swings – Lowers the cooldown of Cleave by 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
New Talent: Storm Wall – Whenever you Parry, you heal for 10% of your maximum health.
Rend – Added to the Arms tree.
Exploit the Weakness now increases Tacticians’ chance to trigger by 1.6% (was 2.6%).
New Talent: Skull Banner – You throw down a Skull Banner at your feet, empowering your allies. Increases critical strike damage by 20% for party members within 20 yards of the war banner. Lasts 10 seconds. Removed Concussive Blows from the Arms tree.
New Talent: Die by the Sword – Increases your parry chance by 100% and reduces all damage you take by 30% for 8 seconds.
Changed some pathing to try and make synergy groups clearer.
The Aura applied to enemies by Fatality is now named Fatal Mark and now lasts 60 seconds, refreshing by new stacks.
Fatal Mark caused by the Fatality talent can no longer critically strike.
Cleaned up the tooltip for Exploit the Weakness.
Built old ranks of Colossus Smash into Colossus Smash correctly.
Built old ranks of Sweeping Strikes into Sweeping Strikes correctly.
Reduced ranks of Improved Mortal Strike and Improved Overpower to 1.
Updated Icon for Martial Prowess.
Fury Developer Notes
Generally happy with where Fury is and do not expect to make large scale changes in the future. As with Arms, changes are likely to be small/or tuning based.
As stated previously, we’re looking at if Annihilator can work for multiple weapon types and if we can open this playstyle up for everyone.
Working internally on Odyn’s Fury subsequent nodes and expect to have them functioning shortly.
As a result of our tuning pass using two-handed and one-handed weapon builds should now have more similar damage numbers.
We’re not happy with Cadence of Fujieda as it is sharing a very similar space with Frenzy and we’re looking at other designs which would probably bring Frenzy back up to four stacks.
We’ve also added some placeholder nodes to a few places to give players an idea of what’s to come.
We are experimenting internally with the idea of letting the auto attack / Annihilator build not be weapon type specific.
We’re doing something fairly experimental with Single-Minded Fury. We’re unsure if it will work out as intended, but we feel it there’s an important issue to try and address here. For a good deal of time there has been a consistent complaint that some players cannot continue to play Fury due to the intense nature of it. Our goal with Annihilator and the related talents is to create a sub spec that would provide a lower APM build that would still allow players to have fun, be competitive and feel like a Fury Warrior.
We’ve made Titan’s Grip baseline for various reasons, but primarily because it makes many things much simpler. It will be something players gain as they level up.
As with the Arms tree, you are now forced to take Enraged Regeneration to ensure you have a minimum amount of survivability. A dead Warrior deals no DPS.
Annihilator is intended to work with most of the Raging Blow modifiers (except those related to cooldown and charges), it is currently working with some, and we hope to have this fully functioning and detailed in tooltips by the next Alpha build.
We’re working on the subsequent nodes for Odyn’s Fury and Ravager, these will be choice nodes and we’ll have more to share here in the future.
Fury
Maximum Frenzy stacks increased to 4 (was 3).
Cadence of Fujieda has been redesigned – Now increases your auto attack speed by 5% per stack instead of your Haste and stacks up to four times.
As a Fury Warrior if you do not have improved Whirlwind, Whirlwind should now correctly cost 30 Rage.
New Talent: Gathering Storm – While Ravager is active, every 1 second you gain 5% movement speed and 5% Strength, stacking. Lasts 6 seconds.
Deft Experience decreases the cooldown of Bloodthirst by 0.75 seconds per rank (was 0.5 seconds).
Added some pathing and moved some nodes to make for more flexible options.
Slaughtering Strikes now grants 10% damage per stack for Raging blow and 3% per stack from Annihilator.
Deft Experience now gives 1.5% Mastery per rank, and also reduces the cooldown of Bloodthirst by 0.5 seconds per rank.
Swift Strikes now grants 1.5% Haste per rank (was 2% per rank).
Critical Thinking now grants 1.5% Critical Strike Chance per rank (was 2% per rank).
Depths of Insanity now makes Recklessness lasts 4 seconds longer (was 5 seconds).
Dual Wield Specialization now grants 5% increased damage (was 10%).
Deafening Crash now increases the duration of Siegebreaker by 2 seconds (was 3 seconds) and increases the critical strike chance of Raging Blow by 5% (was 10%).
Cruelty is now 2 ranks and grants 10% increased damage and a 15% chance to reset its own cooldown during enrage, per rank.
Frenzy now stacks up to 3 times (was 4).
Unbridled Ferocity now works correctly with Reckless Abandon.
Odyn’s Fury is now correctly improved by various damage modifiers.
Ravager cooldown is now correctly 90 seconds.
Gushing wound damage increased to 20% of attack power (was 10%).
Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
Titan’s Grip – Now baseline for all Fury Warriors.
Hack and Slash – No longer incorrectly requires 20 talent points.
Onslaught – Removed the Enrage requirement to use, cooldown reduced to 14 seconds (was 16 seconds) and Rage generated reduced to 20 (was 25).
Pulverize – Now increases Enrage by 1 second and causes Onslaught to Enrage you.
Odyn’s Fury – Now generates 20 Rage temporarily. We plan for this this to generate Rage based on the targets hit in a future update.
Crushing Blow – Removed the auto charge component.
Swift Strikes – Now also causes Raging Blow and Annihilator to generate 1 additional Rage per rank.
Critical Thinking – Now also increases the critical strike damage of Raging Blow by 5% per rank.
Depths of Insanity – Ranks reduced from 2 to 1 and changed to, Recklessness lasts 5 seconds longer.
Ravager – Cooldown increased to 90.0 seconds (was 45.0 seconds) but damage increased to 84% (was 42%) and now correctly awards 10 Rage when dealing damage.
Siegebreaker – Duration increased to 12 seconds (was 10 seconds), now generates 15 Rage (was 10) and damage increased to 120% (was 110%).
Deafening Crash – Now also increases the critical strike chance of Raging Blow and Annihilator during Siegebreaker by 10%.
Slaughtering Strikes – Now correctly costs a talent point and correctly improves all Rampage Strikes when caused by both Raging Blow and Annihilator.
Slaughtering Strikes damage bonus reduced to 8% per strike (was 10%).
Frenzied Flurry – Reduced to 25% (was 50%) chance to trigger Enrage per rank and auto attack damage bonus reduced to 5% per rank (was 10%).
Annihilator – Correctly no longer works with the chain effect of Whirlwind.
Raging Armaments – Now correctly costs a talent point.
Skull Banner – Now correctly costs a talent point.
Vicious Contempt – Now 2 ranks at 20% per rank.
Storm of Swords – Whirlwind and Slam have a 6.0 seconds cooldown but deal 100% increased damage and Slam generates 5 Rage.
Annihilator – Damage reduced by 15%.
Unbridled Ferocity – Now correctly cost a talent point.
Deft Experience – Partial implementation and not labeled on the tooltip is that each node is intended to also reduce the cooldown of Bloodthirst by 0.5 seconds.
New Talent: Unbridled Ferocity – Rampage has a 10% chance to grant you Recklessness for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Slaughtering Strikes – Raging Blow causes every strike of your next Rampage to deal and additional 10% damage. Stacks up to 5 times.
New Talent: Raging Armaments – Raging Blow gains and extra charge.
New Talent: Skull Banner – You throw down a Skull Banner at your feet, empowering your allies. Increases critical strike damage by 20% for party members within 20 yards of the war banner. Lasts 10 seconds.
Removed Concussive Blows from the Fury tree and moved to the Class tree.
Changed some pathing and node positions to try and make synergy groups clearer and add build diversity.
Titan’s Grip and Single-Minded Fury is now a choice talent.
Moved Rampage closer to the top of the tree.
Fixed a dependency issue with Meat Cleaver.
Cold Steel, Hot Blood should now generate 4 rage and references this in the tooltip correctly.
Bloodcraze’s Aura tooltip should now display the correct values.
Improved Rampage is now built into Rampage.
Reduced ranks of Improved Bloodthirst and Improved Raging Blow to 1.
Protection Developer Notes
As we wind down attention and focus on Arms and Fury, we’re now putting more focus on Protection internally. Protection will undergo a tuning pass similar to Arms and Fury soon.
We’ll be putting more focus on the Protection tree in the coming weeks, so for now there aren’t large changes in this week’s build.
We’re looking at doing a tuning pass for Protection in the future both in terms of survivability and DPS output.
Shield Charge – The intention for this ability is that it would be used to charge into packs in dungeons or raids as an opener. Shield Charge isn’t competitive enough currently and we’ll be looking into this. We are toying with the idea of no minimum range so that it can be used at any time and would function more as a shield smash when you’re within a certain distance.
There are some technical complications with Devastator and Devastate that stopped us from merging them as a node for this week, we are likely to either make them a choice node or have Devastate be baseline.
We’re working on subsequent nodes for Ravager and hope to have updates here soon.
Battle Scared Veteran – We want this to remain powerful so in terms of changes we’re hopefully going to be able to balance this ability around the lockout period. Protection Warriors are performing well in the game currently but more so than some other tanks there’s a low margin for error. Battle Scared Veteran is intended to be a fall back in case you make a mistake.
Protection
Fixed another issue with Seismic Reverberation and Revenge, hopefully the last one!
Bloodsurge chance to trigger increased to 20% (was 10%).
Battle-Scared Veterans are no longer scared. They are now Battle-Scarred, as it should be!
Ravager cooldown is now correctly 90 seconds.
Increased damage of Shield Charge to 275% of attack power (was 200%) and increased the area of effect damage to 110% of attack power (was 50%).
Fixed another issue causing Seismic Reverberation to trigger many Revenge casts.
Moved the position of a few nodes around to create some different options and added some new pathways.
Improved Heroic Throw – Now also increases the damage of Heroic Throw and Titanic throw by 100%.
Bloodborne – Now 2 ranks and each rank increases the damage of Deep Wounds, Rend and Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effects by 15%.
Spiked Shield – Damage increased by 10%.
Rend – Added to the Protection tree.
Developers’ note: As the Warrior trees were just recently put on Alpha, we’re still processing the large amount of great feedback being provided, so please keep giving us your thoughts as we’re collecting feedback from a wide variety of sources and it all helps!
Even though we’re still processing the feedback we’ve received, we did want to take some time to respond to a few points of feedback:
Multi-level stat nodes in the Warrior tree serve as gates that you need to spend into in order to access the classes ultimate abilities. The intention of the Talent system is that there are choices and not that you can obtain every point. Using multipoint nodes is a way to control that, but also to direct the flow of certain specializations towards groups of talents that are likely better for them. However, we’ve been reading your feedback and are endeavoring to make them more interesting and varied where we can.
Players have expressed some negativity around buying back components of old abilities. We’re trying to keep this to a minimum where we can in the warrior class, for example Rampage’s full functionality now comes from one talent. However, in some cases these talents are used for teaching new players during the leveling up process to play their class correctly.
We also wanted to clarify some concerns Fury players have regarding needing to obtain 4 weapons to perform optimally in the game. Current tuning aside, our expectation and plan is for Titan’s Grip to be the most competitive specialization for those that engage with progression related content of all forms at the highest levels. However, for those looking for a more relaxed playstyle that is less stressful and skill dependent but still competitive then they have that option also.
Known Issues
Some talent overrides are not working correctly, and you are able to use both spells (E.G. Annihilator doesn’t replace Raging Blow).
Some talent dependencies and combinations are not working correctly. (E.G. Combining Titanic Throw and Improved Heroic Throw doesn’t apply Deep Wounds to all affected targets)
Stances are currently a work in progress and undergoing internal iteration. A large part of their goal is to guide the fantasy of each spec but mechanically, the goal for these is not to encourage frantic stance shifting. But rather switching at certain major points in an encounter, such as For DPS Warriors during a painful AOE damage phase, or for Protection Warrior that are off tanking they may temporarily switch to deal more damage.
A handful of talents will be getting a choice-node option in a later Alpha build (E.G. Rumbling Earth and Thunderous Aftershocks).
Fury has some issues with Execute related to the new player experience that causes you to have both the Arms and Fury versions of Execute (players should use the variant that attacks with both Weapons).
Multi Rank nodes are not always awarding full values.
We’re still working on the background art for the Fury talent tree, it will be added in a later build.
PET BATTLES
Added a questline that helps new players learn about the pet battle system.
PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
NEW ARENA: NOKHUDON PROVING GROUNDS
Within Clan Nokhud’s stronghold are their Proving Grounds, where the centaurs compete to be named the clan’s greatest warrior. Players will be able enter the Nokhudon Proving Grounds to battle for glory by queueing up for Arenas.
The Nokhudon Proving Grounds is a new Arena map being introduced in Dragonflight that has a unique gameplay layout, utilizing ramps, pillars and a middle wall for line of site within the map. During the testing period, The Nokhudon Proving Grounds will be available to queue for as the only map in the pool for queued arena, including Solo Shuffle. So queue up Gladiators – we look forward to your feedback and we’ll see you in the arena!
RATED ARENA SOLO QUEUE
Observant Alpha testers will notice that there is now a Solo Rated PvP option in the Player vs. Player UI. Players will not be able to queue for this mode yet as its still being worked on, but we will have more information to share in a later build.
WAR MODE
Pull out your swords and bows, champions, and turn War Mode on. In this week’s build you’ll be able to see world quests that you’ll only be able to find in war mode. On Alpha, the availability of them will rotate daily for testing purposes. Players can enable and disable War Mode by visiting Stormwind or Orgrimmar depending on their faction, and there are portals in the Seat of the Aspects in Valdrakken you can take to your respective faction’s capitol.
Additionally, within Valdrakken you may have spotted Malicia, a Drakonid part of the Black Dragonflight who enjoys chaos and conflict amongst those not in the Dragonflight. She offers valuable goods in exchange for Bloody Tokens, which you’ll only be able to find in War Mode. Keep an eye out in future builds on how to acquire Bloody Tokens.
CLASSES
DEVELOPERS’ NOTE
In today’s build players will notice changes to some classes’ PvP talents, and we wanted to share our thoughts on PvP Talents going into Dragonflight. In addition to being one of our tuning knobs for PvP, a general goal for PvP talents is to provide interesting gameplay mechanics unique to PvP while also maintaining classes’ fantasy and combat feel.
The talent revamp has a large impact on PvP in multiple ways. Firstly, players will have access to new abilities that are in the class and spec trees as well as the option to customize their builds tailored for specific PvP content and team compositions. These options and talent changes will provide new and exciting gameplay opportunities in PvP at the start of the expansion.
Additionally, the talent revamp inherently affected PvP talents for all specs, but to varying degrees – some talent trees integrated existing PvP talents into the core and spec trees, some classes had abilities redesigned that impacted specific PvP talents and many PvP talents require dependencies from the talent trees. After an assessment of the PvP Talents available to each spec we have some notes and changes going into Dragonflight.
The new Dragonflight talents trees have made a number of abilities available to an entire class that were previously only available to a single specialization. So, several PvP talents based on these abilities are also now available to the entire class. In the upcoming alpha build, Priests and Mages are the first classes we have updated with this philosophy. At the same time, several PvP talents are now being used Dragonflight talent tree or no longer work due to class changes. In cases where a spec does not have enough PvP talents to meet our minimum criteria, we will be adding new abilities. We will be continuing to evaluate PvP talents when the expansion launches and we intend to take a broader look to PvP talents later in the expansion life cycle, similar to what was done in Shadowlands’ Chains of Domination update.
As noted above, PvP talents shine when they lean into gameplay scenarios that are very unique to PvP. One example of a new PvP talent is one Shaman players may have already noticed, Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds. In this week’s build, all caster DPS and healer specializations will have Precognition as an available PvP talent. This talent is intended to elevate the importance of fake-casting gameplay. We look forward to your feedback on it.
All ranged spell casting and healing specializations have a new PvP Talent:
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
MAGE
General
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
Ice Wall – Now available for all specializations.
Ring of Fire – Now available for all specializations.
Fire
New PvP Talent: Glass Cannon – Increase Fireball and Scorch damage by 40%, but reduces your maximum health by 15%.
Frost
New PvP Talent: Snowdrift – Summon a strong Blizzard that surrounds you for 6 seconds that slows enemies by 70% and deals Frost damage every 1 second. Enemies that are caught in Snowdrift for 3 seconds consecutively become Frozen in ice, stunned for 4 seconds.
New Talent: Frost Bomb – Places a Frost Bomb on the target. After a 5 seconds the bomb explodes, dealing Frost damage to the target and Frost damage to all other targets within 10 yards. All affected targets are slowed by 70% for 4 seconds.
PRIEST
General
Eternal Rest – Now available for all specializations.
New PvP Talent: Precognition – If an interrupt is used on you while you are not casting, gain 15% Haste and become immune to control effects for 4 seconds.
New PvP Talent: Catharsis – 20% of all damage that you take is stored in the Catharstick. The stored amount cannot exceed 15% of your maximum health. The initial damage of your next Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked deals this stored damage to your target.
Discipline
Delivered from Evil and Cardinal Mending PvP talents now available for Discipline.
Holy
Purification, Purified Resolve, and Strength of Soul PvP talents now available for Holy.
Shadow
Cardinal Mending, Strength of Soul, and Delivered From Evil PvP talents now available for Shadow.
PROFESSIONS
HIGH END CRAFTING UPDATE
In this week’s build, we have changed how limits on high end crafted gear works. Instead of limiting you to equipping 5 pieces of high item level crafted gear, you can now equip an unlimited amount of basic high end gear. Some of the more special crafted gear which includes special effects, or has a special effect added through an optional reagent will have a equip limit of 2 though to help limit overall gear complexity.
The Profession trainer and vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind have been disabled temporarily.
USER INTERFACE
The recipe panel has been updated for better ease of use and clarity:
Unlearned & pre-Dragonflight recipes are now found via filters.
Favorite recipes are unchanged and are expansion agnostic, so you’ll always see them even if the expansion is not filtered.
Recipe skill up chance is now represented through icons instead of recipe name text color. This change is more in-line with the new Recipe frame design while being more accessible to individuals with color vision deficiency.
Unlearned recipe names now show a gray color instead of a white color.
Recrafting Equipment has its own dedicated section in the recipe panel.
Please note that for this Alpha build, Recrafting is not yet implemented.
Art and animations added for the Professions Specialization frame.
GATHERING NODES
In this Alpha build, players might notice that there are a large amount of mining & herbalism nodes spawned in the Ohn’ahran Plains. While we’re eager for feedback on how these feel, we’re still in the process of setting up the Mining & Herbalism professions and players will not be able to gather these nodes until the Professions have been enabled. In the meantime, please let us know if there are any nodes in unusual positions and are not easily accessed!
ALCHEMY
BLACKSMITHING
COOKING
Developers’ note: Firelord Nomi is back and well versed in all of the new Cooking recipes in Dragonflight. He is located next to the other Profession Trainers in the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar and the Trade District in Stormwind. Players can interact with Firelord Nomi to both train their Cooking skill and obtain reagents for Cooking recipes.
ENGINEERING
In this Alpha build, Engineering has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. There are a few new concepts that we’re exploring for Engineering in Dragonflight:
Engineers are able to craft Wrists for each Armor type, which can be socketed with different Tinkers that have a variety of on-use effects (such as temporary invisibility or summoning an Alarm-O-Turret).
We’ve added a combat resurrection consumable for non-engineers: the Convincingly Realistic Jumper Cables. These are weaker versions of the engineering variant, the Reusable Jumper Cables, and we’re very interested in hearing feedback on how they play out over the course of Alpha.
Various Safety Components can be used as Optional Reagents for crafting Engineering items – these Safety Components can reduce the chance of tinker malfunctions or outright prevent catastrophic malfunctions.
Speaking of malfunctions, the chance for engineering items to blow up in the users’ face now scale their success chance with Engineering specialization traits and Engineering Skill level. There will be a meaningful difference in success rate between new engineers that have lower skill and specialization traits and engineers that have maximized their knowledge of the profession.
In addition to the above, there’s a plethora of new bombs, tinkers and consumables that the Engineering profession can make. Please send us your feedback!
HERBALISM
Herbalism trainers have now been enabled across the Dragon Isles. Gatherers in Dragonflight can now pick herbs that can be found all over the the Dragon Isles, and also focus on how they want to grow as a Gatherer through specializations. A large addition to both Herbalism and Mining is the ability to Overload special nodes (such as Windswept and Frigid nodes), which will cause a unique effect based on your rank in Specializations and the node itself. Overload only works on these special herb nodes, it does not do anything to normal nodes. To access the Overload ability, you need unlock it via the Mastering the Elements specialization path.
Please note that herb nodes are still a work in progress for the Azure Span and Thaldraszus. Both of these zones will be getting additional node spawn locations in the coming weeks.
INSCRIPTION
Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Inscription has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. In addition to the traditional Inscription recipes, we’re introducing a new system to Inscription: the Darkmoon Deck Box. Scribes that have fully unlocked the Darkmoon Mysteries specialization tree will be able to make Darkmoon Booster Packs that contain the cards necessary to create traditional Darkmoon Decks much like before. However, Scribes can now use these Darkmoon Decks to craft Darkmoon Deck Boxes, which are higher item level and are able to be inscribed with Scale Sigils that allow them to customize their Darkmoon Deck Box with different attributes, such as removing all Even cards from the deck, shuffling faster or only shuffling when the player jumps. We’re very interested in feedback on this new system, so please let us know how it feels once you’re able to playtest with it!
Please note that for Alpha purposes, the Darkmoon Ace cards can be bought from Reagent Lord Herbataur. The other remaining cards will need to be crafted by Scribes.
JEWELCRAFTING
Developers’ note: In this Alpha build, Jewelcrafting has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. While cutting gems and Prospecting remain the focus of Jewelcrafting in Dragonflight, we’re also expanding the amount of novelty items that Jewelcrafting can craft, with new Statues, toys and other consumables. We’re also interested in feedback on the new Primalist gems and the Tiered Medallion Setting consumable, which will allow you to add additional sockets to your Dragonflight Necklaces.
LEATHERWORKING
Developers’ note: In this Alpha build, Leatherworking has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. In addition to feedback on the recipes and consumable items from Leatherworking, we’re also interested in feedback on the new Equip and Set effects that can be found on multiple crafted Leathworking pieces.
MINING
In this Alpha build, Mining has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Intrepid miners can now mine ore that can be found in the new Dragonflight zones, and also focus on how they want to grow as a Miner through specializations. A large addition to the Mining is the ability to Overload special ore nodes (such as Molten and Earthen nodes), which will cause a unique effect based on your rank in Specializations and the node itself. Overload only works on these special ore nodes, it does not do anything to normal ore. To access the Overload ability, you need unlock it via the Master the Elements specialization path.
Please pick up your pickaxe and mine some ore, and let us know how the Profession feels! We’re particularly interested in hearing about how ore node density feels in the zones, if there are areas that are too sparse or too generously spawned and overall thoughts on the new Overload mechanic.
SKINNING
Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Skinning has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. While the core gameplay of Skinning remains largely unchanged for Dragonflight, we are adding a new consumable that aims to give Skinners a new form of gameplay: Creature Baits. Skinners will be able to create and place Creature Baits to lure elusive creatures out of hiding.
Please note that for Alpha purposes, the cooldown on Creature Baits has been removed so that players can use the item and give feedback. These items will have a medium length cooldown in their final version, which can be reduced by Bait Crafter Specialization traits.
TAILORING
In this Alpha build, Tailoring has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Tailoring, much like the other armor-crafting Professions, has a plethora of new set & item equip effects and we’re particularly interested in hearing feedback about how these new effects feel. Spellthreads are also making a comeback as leg enchants for Intellect users.
SPECIALIZATIONS
Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.
Developers’ note: For the purposes of Alpha we’ve added a consumable, Professor Instructataur’s Top Secret Guide, on the Associate Professor Instructaur vendor that gives players 50 Specialization points. Below are a few Specialization paths:
ALCHEMY
Potion Mastery — Improve at crafting potions and related alchemist stones, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this specialization.
Batch Production — Master the art of producing potions more efficiently, gaining +1 Multicraft per point in this specialization.
BLACKSMITHING
Weaponsmithing — Improve at making weapons and large tools, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this Specialization.
Long Blades — Improve at making long bladed weapons and tools such as swords, glaives and sickles, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this Specialization.
ENGINEERING
Explosives – Improve in the production of bombs of all types, gaining +1 Skill when crafting bombs per point in this specialization.
Short Fuse – Specialize in the creation and use of bombs without safety fuses. Gain +1 Skill when crafting bombs in this specialization.
Optimized Efficiency – Specialize in the general precautions and techniques that are invaluable skills for all Engineers. Gain +1 Skill to all engineering crafts per point in this specialization.
Scrapper – Specialize in making the most of seemingly useless junk. Gain +5 Multicraft for all Engineering crafts per point in this specialization.
HERBALISM
Bountiful Harvests – Improve at your general harvesting skills, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering herbs.
Floriculture – Study the anatomy of Saxifrage, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering it.
Mastering the Elements – Study the intricacies of the awakening elements within the Dragon Isles and their effects on the plant life, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering elementally-charged herbs.
Windswept – Specialize in Windswept herbs, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization while gathering them.
INSCRIPTION
Archiving – Improve at the art of archiving various texts, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Darkmoon Mysteries – Improve at understanding the complex mysteries behind Darkmoon Cards, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Rune Mastery – Improve at the art of Inscription and utilizing various reagents, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Understanding Flora – Improve at milling various herbs in the Dragon Islands, gaining +1 Resourcefulness per point in this specialization.
JEWELCRAFTING
Faceting — Improve at cutting gems, gaining + 1 Crafting Skill for all gem cuts per point in this specialization.
Fire — Improve at cutting gems with fire, gaining +1 Crafting Skill for all fire cuts per point in this specialization.
Enterprising — Improve in the business of jewelcrafting, gaining +1 Crafting Skill for miscellaneous crafts per point in this specialization.
Prospecting — Improve in the delicate task of prospecting to increase yield and efficiency, gaining +1 Resourcefulness when prospecting per point in this specialization.
LEATHERWORKING
Chain Armor Crafting — Improve at making mail armor, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this specialization.
Intricate Chain — Improve at making intricate chain armor for the hands, feet, shoulders and waist, gaining + 1 Crafting Skill per point in this specialization.
Primordial Leatherworking — Improve at Primordial Leatherworking, gaining + 1 Crafting Skill when crafting elemental, bestial, and decay Leatherworking patters per point in this specialization.
Decaying Grasp — Improve at crafting decay patterns, gaining + 1 Crafting Skill per point in this specialization.
MINING
Mining Process – Study the understanding of proper mining techniques to increase your efficiency in mining and allow for new mining opportunities. Gain +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Surveying – Improve your ability to find deposits and rare materials found within them. Gain +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Mastering the Elements – As elemental chaos runs rampant across the Dragon Isles, experiences miners have discovered new techniques to tap into remnants of these magics found with these precious metals. Gain +1 Skill on all elemental nodes per point in this specialization.
Molten – Specializing in Molten Nodes will allow you to acquire additional Rousing Fire and improve your efficiency in mining these nodes. Gain +1 Skill on Molten Nodes per point in this specialization.
SKINNING
Bait Crafter – Improve your skinning efficiency, gaining +1 Finesse while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
Elemental Infusion – Hone your eye for detail, gaining +1 Perception while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
Tanning – Improve your capabilities at gathering general materials from creatures, gaining +1 Skill while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
Leather Mastery – Bolster your knowledge of leather skinning, gaining +1 Skill while skinning leather creatures in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
TAILORING
Draconic Needlework – Source the magic of the Dragon Isles to craft exceptional clothwear with reagents such as Azureweave and Chronocloth, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Azureweave Tailoring – Focus on the Arcane nature of the Blue Dragonflight in your tailoring, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization when making and using Azureweave.
Garmentcrafting – Improve at tailoring Cloth Armor to take on the most powerful foes in the Dragon Isles, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
Outerwear – Improve at tailoring the major aspects of an outfit, such as Chest and Leg pieces of armor, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specializations.
RECRAFTING
Recrafting has been enabled in this week’s build. Recrafting allows players to change out existing item’s Optional Reagents and potentially improve the quality of the crafted equipment. Crafters can learn the Recrafting Recipe from the Associate Professor Instructaur. Please play around with this system and let us know your thoughts!
KNOWN ISSUES
Factors that influence item Quality and optional reagents that add additional effects to a crafted item will not be properly represented in the final preview of the item. This affects the preview for the Crafting & Recrafting result, the item in the Crafting Complete log and when the item is linked in a chat channel. This is only a display issue on the item preview, the resulting item should still craft properly (let us know if it doesn’t!). This will be fixed in a future build.
Items that have a limited amounts crafts per day, such as Azureweave Bolt, cannot be crafted if the remaining Uses Available is below the max capacity.
Existing Specialization trees will be wiped for this week’s Alpha build. Players will need to re-learn their specialization paths, which can be expedited by buying Specialization points via the Professor Instructataur’s Top Secret Guide consumable on the Associate Professor Instructaur vendor.
Inscription: Draconic Treatises are infinitely consumable, this will be fixed in a future build. They will be single-use items that refresh each weekly reset for a small boost to your Profession Knowledge.
Leatherworking: Feral Hide Drums cannot be crafted. This will be fixed in a later build.
Jewelcrafting: Prospecting Ore does not currently differentiate between different Quality, resulting in the same prospecting output regardless of Ore Quality. This will be fixed in a later build.
Skinning: A few of the Specialization trees are missing description text. This will be fixed in a later build.
USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY
NEW HUD UI — Get ready for a fully updated and customizable Heads Up Display (HUD) User Interface (UI) that’s been created with contemporary displays in mind, designed to be effective, attractive, and accessible.
Unit frames are now in a new default location near the player.
Unit frame art updated
Party frame
EDIT MODE
Added the grid checkbox and slider
Added Player, Target and Focus frame
Added stance bar
Added “Snap to Right Side” to the right action bar settings
Added Pet Bar
Added Possess Bar
Added Cast Bar
Added Minimap
Added Encounter Bar
Added Extra Action Ability
Added Buffs & Debuffs
Added Party Frames
Added Talking Heads
Added Chat Frame
Class and Professions tracking added back to the Minimap tracking toggle.
Tracking drop down list added back to the minimap area.
Developers’ note: Class based and professions tracking will rejoin the list soon.
Updated container/bag display art.
Added new Campaign Quest cursor when hovering over an NPC offering a Campaign Quest.
NEW OPTION: PRESS AND HOLD CASTING
If enabled, allows the player to press and hold a keyboard hotkey to continually cast a spell on an Action Bar without having to repeatedly press the button.
This only supports keyboard hotkeys, clicking a spell with the mouse will still cast the spell a single time.
Will not work with macros and items.
Enable this option under Options > Gameplay > Interface > Combat
NEW FEATURES: INTERACT KEY
Press the Interact Key to interact with NPCs and objects with a keypress instead of your mouse.
Interactive NPCs and objects will highlight as you enter interact range. An icon will appear above NPCs.
The default Interact Key is F. If F is not working or is bound to something else, go to the Keybindings menu and make sure “Interact With Target” is bound to a key.
Enable this feature by typing “/console SoftTargetInteract 3” in chat. An interface option will be added later.
NEW TARGETING SYSTEM: ACTION COMBAT
Automatically targets enemies as you approach them, allowing you to start casting abilities immediately.
Dynamically switches targets based on where you’re looking.
Works alongside the standard targeting system. If you need to lock on to a target, simply press Tab to enter Tab Target Combat.
Enable this feature by typing “/console SoftTargetEnemy 3” in chat. An interface option will be added later.
NEW OPTION: DISPLAY NAME SIZE ADJUSTMENT
Players can now adjust a minimum on-screen text size to keep it legible.
The text will also fade to indicate distance rather than shrinking in size.
Enable this feature by typing “/console WorldTextMinSize 16” in chat. An interface option will be added later into the Accessibility options.
Set to 0 (off), 8 (minimum viable), and 16 (bigger for low vision use).
The Barbershop services are now free of cost.
Equipment sets, guild bank, and macro icon selection can now be chosen with a drag and drop from certain sources (items, spells, mounts, battle pets, macros).
Known issue: Macros do not display their spell icon when the question mark icon is used.
Player interactions with NPC and game objects that open UI windows has received an update, changing the way these interactions are handled on the back end.
Developers’ note: There is no player facing design change, but we’d like alpha testers to help report bugs if there are any issues with UI dialogues from NPC and game objects.
