Season of Discovery Hotfixes - February 21

What was the thought process behind this?

The application on every tick allowed for life bloom to apply much more meaningful healing. On a 6 sec spell, the difference between applying every second versus having a cd(1.5s?, 2s?) is huge for effective healing. It also made us super comparable to priests, mages, and rshams in blanket raid healing.

The tier set has done a great job in making rdruid super competitive again instead of being more a third wheel healer. Personally, I’m’ much more in favor of in using the blanket hot method, instead of spamming nourish. I just wish you would have either left this alone, or at least kept the application the same, and making the set bonus application at x% of normal bloom value. As it stands, our heals are just going to be sniped again by rshams and mages, and it loses quite a bit of tank healing value.

Please undo the nerf!

This was just absolutely busted and had to be nerfed.

February 13, 2025

Season of Discovery

  • Scourge Invasions
    • The rate at which undead spawn at the Scourge Invasion camps has been greatly increased. This increases both the number of creatures present as well as the rate at which more spawn, making invasion camps much more dangerous. As a reminder, you cannot loot another Heart of Doom if you have looted one within the last 5 minutes.
    • Remnants of Valor now drop once per day from bosses in Scholomance and Stratholme Dead Side bosses. These are on the same timer as Tarnished Undermine Real dropping once daily from bosses.
    • Every zone that has a Scourge Invasion now also has a soul projection of Brother Luctus for picking up and turning in the repeatable quest.
    • You can now exchange Remnants of Valor for Argent Dawn Valor Tokens from Brother Luctus.
    • Next week, the Seal of the Dawn will only go up 1 maximum rank, to rank 5.
      • Developers’ Notes: We previously expected to increase the Seal of Dawn power system to rank 6 next week, but have determined that it would be better to slow it down and possibly cap it earlier than rank 10. This also means that players will not have to obtain as many Remnants of Valor each week. We will continue to track and evaluate this system.
  • Karazhan Crypts
    • Remnants of Valor now drop from Karazhan Crypts bosses.
    • Ultravision cannot be removed by immunities.
    • Flametongue Totem now grants protection from Oppressive Darkness.
  • Naxxramas
    • A portal has been added inside of the entrance to Naxxramas that will allow players to exit the instance.
    • A portal has been added in the Frostwyrm Lair that becomes active when Sapphiron is defeated, allowing players to return to the entrance of Naxxramas.

Please consider increasing the speed at which necropolises respawn in each zone. Playing whack-a-mole with spawns feels terrible.

Again a shaman buff… why not make consecration do the same ? It’s much more RP.

1 Like

would be great if lanterns and torches that we can already equip would give us light to see by in KC

February 14, 2025

Season of Discovery

  • In Season of Discovery, all buffs from the Lunar Festival and Love Is In The Air events require the holiday to be active. After the events end, event items cannot be consumed, and they will be removed upon log-in.
  • Might of Menethil now has a chance on hit to knocks down all nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
  • Naxxramas
    • Kel’thuzad will no longer rot faster than intended on maximum difficulty.
    • Kel’thuzad will no longer allow players to use a Flask of Petrification to avoid engaging with his mechanics on maximum difficulty.
  • Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
    • Huhuran will no longer retain stacks of Frenzy after a wipe.
  • Druid
    • The Tier 3 Feral Druid 2-piece bonus will no longer increase the frequency of Rake’s periodic against players.
  • Hunter
    • Tranquilizing Shot will no longer remove stacks of the Tier 3 Melee Hunter 6-piece bonus.
    • Feign Death will now set the remaining duration of the Tier 3 Undead Slaying bonus to 5 seconds, providing an opportunity to get back into combat to keep the bonus stacks.
  • Mage
    • Mages will no longer have a chance to instantly kill players when they are Mind Controlled.
  • Paladin
    • Righteous Fury will no longer incorrectly fall off if the target that dealt damage to the Paladin is no longer available/alive.
    • The Tier 1 Holy Paladin 6-piece bonus will now correctly gain healing based on your Sanctified bonus.
    • The Holy Paladin Temple of Ahn’Qiraj 4-piece bonus will no longer incorrectly benefit twice from your Sanctified healing bonus.
    • The Tier 3 Retribution Paladin 6-piece set bonus will no longer work if you have Hand of Reckoning engraved or Righteous Fury active.
      • Developers’ notes: We feel that this would turn a Paladin tank into a one-button playstyle while also providing too much damage for a tank. With this change, Protection Paladins can exchange their Retribution Tier for Tank Tier until the February 20. This is a one-way trade.
  • Priest
    • The Tier 1 Shadow Priest 6-piece bonus should now more responsively to add the Melting Faces buff to players after a Mind Blast crit, allowing an empowered Mind Flay to be immediately channeled.
  • Rogue
    • Soul of the Phantom will now correctly apply to Rogues upon logging in.
    • Fixed an issue preventing Rogues from getting a Sending Sigil if they knew the Engrave Blunderbuss rune.
  • Shaman
    • The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj 4-piece Enhancement set now correctly works against Bleed-Immune targets.
  • Warlock
    • Shadowflame and Immolate no longer gain increased critical damage from Pandemic. This increase is from the Ruin talent.
1 Like

" * Druid

  • The Tier 3 Feral Druid 2-piece bonus will no longer increase the frequency of Rake’s periodic against players."

Please allow us to refund feral tier due to this change.

What about warriors, Prot warriors feel under tuned and not as powerful compared to other tank counterparts like Prot pallies, Warlocks, and shaman tanks. Where we can we get that significant boost for our threat increase?

So why even have Lunar Festival and Love Is In The Air in the game for SoD?

1 Like

Hello,

The reasoning behind the changes to the Paladin DPS set is completely fried.

Paladins have been using the Ret set throughout the entirety of SoD. Paladins have had this rapid fire exo spam meta ever since the P2 changed Seal of the Martyr.

Here is a quick reminder of the 1 button playstyle and utilization of Ret sets for tanks throughout SoD:

Phase 1: Ret 2h tank, nobody was specced prot or used prot runes.
Phase 2: Martyr changes made fast weapons 1 button exo rapid fire key meta
Phase 3: 1 button ret set meta
Phase 4: block value was great
Phase 5: 1 button ret set (4pc t2) meta
Phase 6: 1 button ret meta (4pc t2) meta
Phase 7: 1 button ret meta (6pc t3). All prot runes dead except Aegis & HoR

How about making the Prot T3 appealing via block value scaling or making the dead Prot runes good again? Blocking 300 dmg of a 17k hateful strike is trash.

Hm4/4 is cleared already, Warlock tanks utilizing crit scaling to take no damage on Loatheb and having the highest avoidance for hatefuls was key.

Extremely disapointing change personally because 1x Fortitude of the Scourge and 2x Idols are going to be wasted. Big setback tbh.

Personally i’ll be going Ret with the set instead of exchanging it, because the Prot set is worthless, but 6/6 is not really needed for stacking or twisting so it’s incredibly frusterating. Plan was to Exodin for the 11 one tank fights, 1 button prot for other 4 fights.

Tier should have went to an Hpal with these changes, as their 6 set is really the key to 4/4HM prog for Alliance.

I thought the team spent a lot of time thinking things through?

While I appreciate the fix for melee hunter tranq shot and feign death. Why oh why would you still have it blanket apply to all ranged attacks.

The obvious intention was to have it stop the killshot weave and survival killshot melee meta. So why not just have it apply to killshot only?

With the change here it is obvious that the dev team has the coding capability to do so, and is simply making a choice to ruin an aspect of a class that has existed forever.

Why punch melee players with having to move out of mechanics, oh boy don’t u dare shoot that bow. Don’t you dare shoot webbed players on maexxna. Don’t you even think about shooting sapphiron in air phase.

Please reconsider and simply apply the change to killshot only. This achieves your objective while keeping the class abilities and mode of play as it’s been for 21 years.

Rdruid is still solidly last in HPS since our HoTs are easily sniped. Let us get the buff we need to be tied with the crazy output the other healers can dish out for free.

You’re absolutely right to ask for a better PvE balance but those Drood 2p T3 bonuses were absolute bonkers in PvP and shouldn’t have made it to live.
Even in dungeon, we got used to run KZ with Rdrood and Feral spike tank and he could pull whole rooms without breaking a sweat. Had fun tanking the spider with all the adds, by-passing mechanics and hitting 13k DPS while the Rdrood lazily pressed one touch.

Devs should focus on balance, not on game-breaking mechanics like that.

Yeah…yeah I really noticed this one… seems they plan on nerfing lock into a summon bot…

2 Likes

that’s also why though a more targeted nerf would have been nice. mainly in lowering the bloom amount by 25% (or w/e). The healing was bonkers, but the bigger issue is now that its locked on an internal gcd, we lost most of the effective healing, as other healers will snipe prior to the bloom proc. It’s still only a 6s spell, so its fine to make it our main healing spell as its capped on the targets you can put it on before losing one.

That effective burst healing outside WG windows is rdruids biggest issue (unless you enjoy the nourish spam), so this was a really nice tool in making rdruid finally feel like a complete healer that could compete. I wish they would undo the proc chance nerf, and adjust the bloom amount.

They did, shadowflame spec is dead now.
In 2 weeks they have killed demonology and destro specs, and affliction only works fine in long fights not these 30seconds dummies in naxx.

February 21, 2025

Season of Discovery

  • Soul shoulder enchants are now stackable up to 20. Once purchased, these cannot be refunded.
  • Wartorn Undermine Supply Crates now contain about twice as many Wartorn Scraps as before.
  • Undead Slaying set bonuses now activate at 2 pieces (was 3).
  • Karazhan Crypts
    • Added a chance for Kharon and the Dark Rider to drop the neck piece from the apprentice you did NOT unlock.
    • Developers’ notes: For example, if you release Kaigy Maryla, Kharon now has a chance to drop Sairuh’s Collar, and the Dark Rider now has a chance to drop Barian’s Choker. We are aware you can summon the Dark Rider before releasing an apprentice. If this happens, the Dark Rider does not have an additional drop chance.
  • Naxxramas
    • The exit portal that spawns in Sapphiron’s room after the boss has been defeated will now persist after players leave and soft reset the instance.
    • The gates blocking entrance into the various wings of Naxxramas will now stay open forever if Kel’Thuzad has been defeated.
    • Fixed an issue where the number of bosses killed on the hardest difficulty weren’t tracking properly if you soft reset your raid after killing Four Horsemen.
      • Raid groups in a bugged state will be able to fight Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad on their hard-mode difficulties after soft resetting their instances.
    • The Spore Buff on Loatheb will no longer count towards the Dance of the Wicked dodge chance.
    • The Spore Buff on Loatheb will no longer count towards the Elemental Shaman Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj 3-piece bonus, the Retribution Paladin T3 6-piece bonus, or the Shadow Priest T3 6-piece bonus for the purposes of increasing damage.
    • Sapphiron’s Glacial Crash now correctly splits its damage amongst players, no longer benefits from the player’s % damage modifiers, and Glacial Crash damage has been increased to the correct amount without accounting for player % damage modifiers.
  • Druid
    • The Restoration T3 6-piece set bonus will now correctly work against Sapphiron’s Frost Aura ticks
    • The Feral damage T3 2-piece bonus now mentions in its tooltip that it will not be effective against players.
  • Hunter
    • Ranged Hunter T3 2-piece now correctly increases the damage dealt by Chimera Shot - Serpent.
  • Mage
    • Mass Regeneration will correctly update the duration of Temporal Beacons on players who have a Temporal Beacon from another Mage with a longer than 15 second duration.
  • Paladin
    • The Retribution T3 6-piece bonus now mentions that it does not work while Righteous Fury or Hand of Reckoning are active.
  • Priest
    • Serendipity now correctly applies to your next Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing even if they were spell queued before a Serendipity was present.
    • Penance is no longer affected by Spell Haste that benefits non-channeled spells.
  • Shaman
    • The tooltip for the Restoration T3 6-piece set bonus now correctly mentions Earth Shield instead of Spirit of the Alpha.
  • Warlock
    • Haunt will no longer incorrectly increase the impact damage of Shadowflame.
    • Improved Immolate will no longer incorrectly increase the damage from the Warlock T3 Shadowflame hit.
    • The Scythe of Chaos will now correctly do its Felhunter Silence and Interrupt.
    • Damage Warlock T3 6-piece bonus now correctly ties the Mark of Chaos effect to the Curse of Agony cast and not to the Curse of Recklessness that is applied through the bonus. This prevents Mark of Chaos from falling off if Curse of Recklessness is replaced by another Warlock.
    • Haunt will no longer incorrectly increase the impact damage of Shadowflame.
    • Improved Immolate will no longer incorrectly increase the damage from the T3 Shadowflame hit.
  • Warrior
    • Fresh Meat will now correctly have a 100% chance to proc on an encounter after a wipe.
    • Fresh Meat will now correctly have a 100% chance to proc against a target in PvP if the target player leaves combat with the Warrior.
    • Revenge attack power multiplier increased by 25% (was 15%).

I’m not a priest at all currently in SOD, but you guys should at least let their priest bubble matter a little bit haha.

1 Like

Warlocks in shambles. Between the dumpster tier tank set and now the completely neutered shadow flame it seems someone at Blizz has it out for Warlocks.