#1 - April 1, 2017, 12:49 a.m.
[[Note to community team: when you write the intro paragraph for this, include some flavor text about Mecha-Arthas, and maybe do some foreshadowing about an upcoming conflict with Vol'jin Prime.]]
New & Updated Features
New Zone: The Underneath
- Very strange things are happening in Duskwood, and it's up to you to investigate the disappearance of a local boy.
- Team up with an all-star cast of heroes, including a mysterious girl, several of the boy's friends, and the boy's mother (as portrayed by the wonderfully talented Onona Windrider).
- The story plays out in eight chapters, which you can experience at your own pace, but we know you're just going to binge them all weekend anyway.
Story and World
- Corrected an issue causing Dadgar's name to incorrectly be presented as "Khadgar."
- The Armies of Legionfall have been successful in their mission to defeat the Burning Legion. Azeroth is finally safe, from all enemies, forever. Now's a good time to brush up on your general chat skills.
- To better express the core story of the Legion expansion, all World Quests will now include harpies shouting at you about whatever it is you're doing.
- Increased the damage dealt by lava and similar environmental hazards to be juuuuust enough to kill you before you can jump out.
Raids
- Players must now have the achievement "Ahead of the Curve: Kil'jaeden" in order to zone into the Tomb of Sargeras raid.
- Developers' notes: We've heard extensive feedback from players about the inconvenience of manually screening group applicants based on their achievements. We hope that by automating and enforcing these requirements on our end, we can streamline the process, so that players can more quickly organize raid groups and begin working towards their ultimate goal of defeating Kil'jaeden.
- Additionally, players will not be able to enter any raid instance without having first completed the Maw of Souls dungeon at least 500 times on Mythic Keystone difficulty.
- Mythic difficulty raids have been retuned around a new group size of 21.2 players. We feel that the extra 1.2 players will allow an extra layer of depth that we could not have achieved with round integer values.
- We're pleased to announce that the award for Best Opera Performance goes to... Westfall Story!
- Portals to Dalaran have been added to each room in the Tomb of Sargeras raid. This should make changing talents much more convenient for those of you who are still too cheap to buy Tomes of the Tranquil Mind.
- [[Hey, encounter designers: have we adjusted Onyxia's Deep Breath ability lately? Can someone check?]]
- We've introduced the rest of Withered J'im's family to the World Boss rotation, including Withered J'ane, Withered J'ethro, and Withered J'steve.
- I'm sorry, no... there's a mistake. Wikket, you guys won Best Opera Performance.
- Added a series of achievements unique to Raid Finder difficulty:
- Developers' notes: Not all players are motivated by powerful set bonuses and striking armor sets. Some want the lasting prestige of achievements, and while we offer countless achievements that are specific to other difficulties, there have never been achievements that are only available through Raid Finder. That ends here.
- Raid Finder: Darkbough - Defeat Il'gynoth without ever accidentally damaging his Eye with a Nightmare Ichor's explosion.
- Raid Finder: Tormented Guardians – Defeat Cenarius without engaging any of the hostile creatures in the corrupted Moonglade.
- Raid Finder: Rift of Aln – During the Xavius encounter, loot at least two Legendary items from the Overflowing Loot Chests hidden in the mists of the Rift.
- Raid Finder: Arcing Aqueducts – Defeat at least 1000 Crystalline Scorpids before defeating Skorpyron.
- Raid Finder: Royal Athenaeum – Stun 24 other players with one explosion from Arcanic Release.
- Raid Finder: Nightspire – Defeat Tichondrius after having dealt more total damage to Tainted Bloods than to Tichondrius himself.
- Raid Finder: Betrayer's Rise – Successfully avoid being caught in any of those scary-looking pink bubbles that pop up.
Dungeons
- We're thrilled at the positive response we've seen regarding the Mythic+ system in Legion. We're expanding on that general concept with the following game modes:
- Mythic -
- Mythic ×
- Mythic ÷
- (Mythic - x) = (22 + y) ÷ 7. Solve for Mythic.
- Flocking: Your party will be periodically attacked by Seagulls, which will immediately stun the tank and kill the healer.
- Organic: Has no noticeable effect on the dungeon itself, but it's probably a lot healthier.
- Squeamish: Every time an enemy dies, all players will be totally grossed out and have to look away for a minute to catch their breath.
- Forgetful: We don't actually remember what this one does, sorry.
- When prompted, players will now be asked if they are prepared.
- They may then choose to respond with either "I am prepared" or "I am not prepared."
Holidays
- To help further express the overall vision for Micro-Holidays as fun, low-impact events, we've added some new categories, including Mini-Holidays, Nano-Holidays, Smallidays, and Un-Holidays.
- Winter Veil has been cancelled this year. You know what you did.
- A new Micro-Holiday has been added: Create Your Own Holiday Day.
- This new Micro-Holiday allows you the freedom to celebrate anything you can imagine!
- As soon as you log in, you'll notice a clean slate available to you – no holiday NPCs, no decorations, nothing to stand in the way of you and your imagination.
- Gather your friends, and celebrate! Or don't! Use this non-Holiday Holiday to do whatever you like.
Artifact Weapons
- New interface option: Use scientific notation for displaying Artifact Power costs for Artifact Traits.
- Developer's note: You're going to need this.
- Artifact Knowledge can now be researched to 9000. We're not sure what will happen to Artifact Power levels if that gets any higher.
- Someone pointed out that the words "Artifact" and "Relic" mean basically the same thing, so we've simplified these two systems. You can now put Artifacts in your Artifacts.
- New mechanic: Artifact Talents
- In addition to your Talents, Honor Talents and Artifact Traits, you can now choose among several Artifact Talents.
- [[What do these actually do?]]
Changes
Legendary Items
- Your base chance to receive a Legendary has been increased by 30%, but your luck now increases at a 50% slower rate. We're pretty sure this is better but we're honestly just guessing at this point.
- We've made several other improvements to the Bad Luck Protection system. As such, it has been renamed "Mediocre Luck Protection."
- We've added a chance for Legendaries to drop when performing the following activities:
- Fishing
- Taking flight paths
- Dancing on a mailbox while AFK
- Asking Dadgar about the future
- Nomi
Professions
- Some players reported that Nomi's research was occasionally granting recipes. We were unable to reproduce this behavior internally, but believe we've fixed the issue causing it to happen. Please continue to report this clearly unintended behavior if it should continue.
- As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce unnecessary complexity, Herbalists have been given an ability that just creates gold.
- The recipe for Frost Oil no longer requires Dadgar's Whiskers.
- The recipe for Azsuna Frittata has been removed from the game.
- Developer's Note: While we still believe in the core philosophy behind Azsuna Frittata, it wasn't exactly problem-free, and as the initial craze has now passed, we feel removing it is the right choice.
- Posting auctions of tradeskill materials in stack sizes of 1 now has a chance to delete a Legendary item. If you have no Legendary items, it will delete your character instead.
- No changes have been made to Prairie Dogs.
PvP
- With the release of Patch 7.8.0, Legion Season 1 titles will be redistributed once again for the last time we totally swear.
- By popular request, PvP vendors have been added. Head to your nearest capital city if you would like to purchase some PvP.
- Several new PvP Brawls have been added:
- Arathi Bluster: It's your favorite point-capture map, but with the Violent Winds effect from Eye of Azshara active. Don't get blown away!
- Eye of the Volcano: We've taken the gameplay you know and love from Eye of the Storm and placed it in the center of an active volcano. Hope your lava jumping skills are up to scratch!
- Warsong Belch: Available only during Brewfest, you'll rise to the challenge of capturing the flag while all players are forcibly inebriated!
- Strand of the Really Ancients: Travel back in time to an era before engineered weapons and break through those huge doors with just your bare fists. Hey, you wanted longer battlegrounds!
Classes
[[Community team: remember to go through this list and randomly remove a few changes before you post this.]]
Death Knight
- We've heard some concerns from the Death Knight community about the location of their Order Hall, and a general desire for a change of scenery. As such, Acherus has been relocated to Silithus.
- Several Death Knight talents have been retuned:
- Will of the Necropolis now has a 35% chance to activate. It been renamed to Might of the Necropolis.
- Abomination's Might now has a 50% reduced chance to activate. It has been renamed to Abomination's Maybe.
- All Will Serve now only has a 30% chance to summon an additional minion, and has an additional 20% chance to summon no minions at all. It has been renamed to Some Could Possibly Serve, If They Feel Like It.
- It now reads, "Causes the Death Knight to immediately become inextricably lodged within the nearest crack or crevice between them and their target."
- Functionality unchanged.
Demon Hunter
- We've automated the character naming process to get players interested in trying the Demon Hunter in-game quicker. You'll automatically be given a traditional Demon Hunter name, such as "Skillidan" "Chillidan" or "Ìllïdåñ"
- We've expanded the Demon Hunter ability set to include several other iconic Demon Hunter abilities, including:
- Drain Soul
- Chaos Bolt
- Soulstone
- Ritual of Summoning
- Unending Breath
- You may now jump continually in the air. In fact, you have to. Touching the ground will result in immediate, painful death.
Druid
- Guardian Druids are now immune to damage.
- Balance Druids have had their primary resource redesigned once again, with a different take on the Balance Bar system used in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor:
- This new and improved version of the Balance Bar is instead called the Balance Beam.
- The Balance Beam uses motion controls, along with a specially-designed peripheral, to determine the Druid's efficiency based on their gymnastic performance.
- As you spin and twirl around the Balance Beam, a team of judges will grade your performance. The higher your score, the more damage you deal.
- Balance Druids looking for an additional challenge may choose the "Uneven Bars" talent.
Hunter
- To avoid confusion with Demon Hunters, the Hunter class has been renamed to "Shooty Stabby Outdoorsy Types."
- Hati had puppies! You can attempt to control them like other pets, but there's a good chance they'll just chew on your furniture instead.
- New glyph added for A Murder of Crows: A Whole Lot of Pepes
- Ducks may now be tamed as pets.
- New Ability: Aspect of the Chupacabra:
- Causes you to transform into some kind of dog-lizard and attack nearby livestock.
- Cannot be used while the Hunter has a goat pet active, to prevent mishaps.
- Gives you... a bonus to... cacti? Or something?
- [[To be honest, I'm not even sure what a chupa-thingy is, I just like the name. It's got a ring to it.]]
- Your target is offended that you'd even point that thing at them.
- How dare you?
Mage
- Aluneth can now be added to your ignore list.
- The Artifact Traits "The Storm Rages" and "Let It Go" have been removed from the game, along with the Frozen Orb ability, because seriously that movie came out like 4 years ago and we're tired of hearing about it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
- Cone of Cold never bothered me, anyway.
- Conflagration has been removed from Fire Mages and given to Destruction Warlocks instead. We're not entirely sure how it got there in the first place.
- Arcane Missiles and Arcane Explosion have been given a visual update! They're now slightly more purple.
- Mages now have +10% bonus to Class Fantasy.
- Mages who open a portal to Northrend Dalaran after finishing a Legion dungeon run will be immediately and permanently banned from the Internet. Yes, the whole thing.
Monk
- Brewmasters who attempt to use Ironskin Brew, Purifying Brew, and Fortifying Brew too regularly will now be cut off and asked to call a taxi.
- Crackling Jade Lightning damage reduced by 30%.
- [[Note to class designers: this is a preventative measure to prevent Windwalkers from being too strong once they figure out our secret DPS rotation]]
- Keg Smash has been removed. Seriously, that's just wasteful.
- Storm, Earth, and Fire renamed Earth, Wind, and Fire. This spell now chases the clouds away throughout the month of September.
- As part of an effort to present a more fun and lighthearted image to younger audiences, Mistweavers have replaced Essence Font with Comic Sans.
- After using Thunder Focus Tea, Comic Sans will be replaced with Papyrus instead.
- Teachings of the Monastery has received some new curriculum, and will now be focusing on Common Core.
- Resuscitate no longer requires mouth-to-mouth contact on Undead players.
- Dark Side of the Moon has been reworked so that it now lines up better with that old movie you're watching.
Paladin
- Choosing the Unbreakable Spirit talent will now cause the Paladin to never stop chasing their dreams, Titus.
- After casting Tyr's Deliverance, any offline or out of range party members will be left a note indicating that they may collect their healing from the Paladin Order Hall between 8 and 10 PM.
- We made some changes to the Cavalier talent, but we won't bother explaining them to you. They're probably too complicated for you to understand.
- Lay on Hands will now properly respect the target's personal space.
- We've accidentally scrambled the names of various abilities using the words "Divine," "Protection," "Hammer," "Holy," or "Blessing."
- We're not entirely sure what Hammer of Protection or Blessing of Divine Holy are, but they're probably pretty good.
- The errant letter 'e' has been removed from the names of the talents Bacon of Faith, Bacon of the Lightbringer, and Bacon of Virtue.
- Luminescence renamed to something that's an actual word.
Priest
- Discipline Priests have returned from an extensive off-site training session at Nar'thalas Academy. They are now 100% more Disciplined.
- Divine Hymn now summons a panel of celebrity judges who might, if you cast it really well, ask you to be on their team. This is what you've been dreaming of your whole life!
- Shadow Word: Death has been given a name more befitting its effect. It's now called Shadow Word: One More Step On The Unwavering Road To Oblivion.
- Holy Priests who choose the Apotheosis talent and then never activate it even once through the entire boss fight will now be disconnected from the game for a week. I mean, really. Ugh.
- That tentacle that Priests can summon now also spawns the other nine, making for a total of ten tickles, as intended.
- We've outsourced the rest of this section to the Shadow specialization.
- Hope is an illusion.
- Embrace the void.
- Your heart WILL EXPLODE.
- NYARL'FGWTH!
- AIGN RYOGL THO'GOTHAYL U'THRGAL!
- rez pls
Rogue
- Rogues will now shoot arrows more slowly.
- New Ability: Spectral Sight Cloak
- When activated, makes the Rogue invisible to Spectral Sight.
- [[Reminder for the class team: Don't forget to give Demon Hunters a "Spectral Sight Cloak Sight" ability 2 days before releasing the patch. Otherwise we won't be able to add "Spectral Sight Cloak Sight Cloak" in 7.8.5.]]
Shaman
- [[shower thought: do we really need this section? Let's talk Monday. I vote we cut it entirely.]]
- Shaman who pronounce the name of their class incorrectly will no longer be allowed entry to their Order Hall.
- Also, people who say "Shamans" are just the worst.
- Overcharge now has a 100% chance of occurring when you take your car in to the shop.
- Sentry Totem has been returned to the game.
- Just kidding. We're actually removing some other totems.
- Spirit Walk has been re-routed around that construction zone that seems like it's never going to be finished.
- Ancestral Vision is now 10% less creepy when you're doing things in the bathroom.
- Hailstorm now seems to happen a lot more frequently than you recall in this part of the world.
- Shaman in Ghost Wolf form will now be regularly assured by nearby NPCs that they're good dogs, Brent.
Warlock
- Felguards have stopped playing their records backwards.
- Rain of Fire will now correctly create a downpour of both rain and fire. In some cases, this will result in a beautiful rainbow. Other times, the rain will extinguish the fire and nothing will happen. That's just, like, the cycle of life and stuff.
- Unstable Affliction has had its functionality extended to more accurately suit its unstable nature. You can no longer predict exactly what Unstable Affliction is going to do. Sometimes it heals the target. Sometimes it takes 9 seconds to cast. Sometimes you'll just explode. Good luck!
- All talents named "Grimoire" have been renamed "Book", with the exception of the Shepherd Grimoire. We couldn't find a good place for it in the Warcraft movie, so we just killed it off in the first 20 minutes.
- Cataclysm now deals damage equal to 1200% of spell power (was 1000%), and is remembered 20% more fondly than it was about four years ago.
- Shadowfury has been replaced by Nightfury, which must be trained extensively, and is kind of toothless.
- Power Trip now causes Warlocks to automatically kick guildmates who disagree with their thoughts on loot distribution.
Warrior
- Weapons and shields equipped by Warriors will now lose durability every time they hit a target, and will break entirely once their durability reaches 0.
- Developer's Note: This change will better emphasize the core Warrior fantasy as the appointed knights of Azeroth. Note that you'll probably want to bring several weapons to each boss encounter. Of course, if you run out, you could always just grab a random skeleton's arm or something.
- The talent "Double Time" has had its name simplified to "Charges." Warriors who take Charges still gain another charge of Charge, andCharges' charges of Charge will charge faster.
- Whirlwind now has an additionaOpportunity Strikes when you least expect it!
- MORTAL COMBO! Dana-nana-nana-nana-nah-nah.
- Bladestorm is now 15% scarier when you didn't think to bring an umbrella when you left this morning.
- Morale Killer now sometimes fails to reduce the cooldown of Demoralizing Shout. Why do you have to be so negative all the time, anyway?
- Carnage now covers the Warrior with venom, causing them to deal increased damage to those weird spider-men in Suramar.
- Bloodbath now covers the Warrior with blood, causing a strong sense of déjà vu.
- Warpaint now covers the Warrior with paint, causing them to continue beating this dead horse.
- Blizzard is now hiring! We're looking for someone with fresh, new ideas.