WotLK Classic – PTR Development Notes Roundup

Greetings!

Build: 47014

December 8, 2022

Testing Focus – Ulduar “Pre-Nerf”

• The Ulduar raid is now available for testing in both 10 and 25 player versons.
  • To facilitate testing we have re-enabled Character Copy from live realms, as well as added new items to the PTR vendors in Dalaran.
    • Of note, Dungeon Gearatuar in Dalaran also sells the Celestial Planetarium key to access Algalon the Observer’s room.
  • We’ve also added functionality to the teleporters within Ulduar to allow groups to skip to any area of Ulduar right away.
  • Additionally, the door to the Celestial Planetarium is open and Algalon can be accessed freely.
  • Please note that in the release version of the game, you will need to progress through the instance as normal to unlock additional teleporters, and you will need to complete the pre-requisite tasks to unlock the Celestial Planetarium as was the case in 2009.

Ulduar Known Issues

• When a player is affected by Slag Pot on the Ignis the Furnace Master encounter, their portrait and buff/debuff bars display as if they themselves were Ignis.
• Iron Dwarf Mole Machines that spawn during the Razorscale encounter play their initial spawn animation twice.
• During Phase 4 of the Mimiron encounter the Aerial Command Unit spins at extremely high velocity.
• The initial impact animation of Hodir’s Fury during the Flame Leviathan encounter does not properly clean up and despawn when the spell animation completes, and will persist indefinitely in the encounter space.
• Yogg-Saron does not display its appropriate death animation when it is defeated.
• The achievement progress for Supermassive during the Algalon encounter does not reset its progress properly after a failed attempt.
• The Ulduar Teleporter objects do not change their appearance state after being activated.

Summary of Ulduar Adjustments

There are far too many changes to list in their entirety, but here is a rundown of meaningful changes as well as each bosses’ most significant pre-nerf adjustments. We cannot stress enough that the pre-nerf changes listed here are not comprehensive nor overly detailed in all cases. This is merely an overview of major adjustments we made to bring the encounters back into their most challenging early states.

Realm First! Death’s Demise

• The Realm’s First: Death’s Demise achievement now requires all four Titan Keepers to be completed on Hard Mode as well as the Assembly of Iron completed on the highest level of hard mode within the same lockout as the Yogg-Saron kill to qualify for the achievement.
  • Developer’s Notes: This is a #change from 2009 but this has been done to help situations where guilds vying for Realm First achievements might feel forced to potentially make a choice between trying to unlock Algalon and/or complete the keepers on hard mode or pushing straight to Yogg Saron for the Realm First achievement, potentially missing out on better rewards while making the push. Making the keepers required as well as Assembly of Iron smooths this out somewhat as all of the needed bosses for both Zero Lights in the Darkness and Algalon are on the critical path to the realm first achievement, and also makes this slightly more difficult to accomplish in general by requiring all of these hard modes to be completed quickly, which feels more consistent with the modern knowledge and skill level of the players who would attempt this achievement.

Flame Leviathan

• Towers of Flame, Storm, Life, and Frost health increased
• Tower of Frost additionally slows movement speed by 20%
• Grab Pyrite may not be used on Salvaged Choppers in the encounter’s pre-nerf state
• Flame Vents won’t cancel early when Turrets on Flame Leviathan die

Razorscale

• Devouring Flame’s damage is increased and may crit.
• Devouring Flame’s damage category is undefined rather than “Magic”
• Devouring Flame periodic damage occurs every 1 second rather than ever 2 seconds
• Fireball Damage increased
• Fireball and Flame Breath defense category is undefined rather than”Magic”
• Dark Rune Sentinel has access to whirlwind on 10 player in addition to 25 player mode
• Razorscale will cast Flame Buffet during phase 2
• Berserk Timer is 10 minutes down from 15

Ignis the Furnace-Master

• Slag Pot damage increased
• Boss Damage is increased across the board
• Strength of the Creator’s damage mod reduced from 20% to 15%
  • Developer’s Note: In this state Strength of the Creator is slightly less powerful than its post-nerf state, but this is offset by significantly increased damage that the boss deals with all other abilities

XT-002 Deconstructor

• (25 Player) XR-949 Salvagebots (pre-XT trash mob) will cast Deploy Salvage Claws twice as often
• Health and damage increased in all raid sizes and modes for XT-002 and all adds
• Searing Light and Gravity bomb now reference the same version of the Heartbreak spell used in 10 and 25 player mode.
  • Developer’s Note: Originally these were split to make this less punishing on 10 player. Not so in pre-nerf mode 
• Gravity Bomb damage increased
• Light Bomb damage increased
• Light Bomb Radius increased from 8y to 10y
• Heart Overload visual occurs much more often
• The amount of health and damage increase XT-002 gains when Heartbreak is active has increased dramatically
• Shock now chains to up to 3 targets
• Tympanic Tantrum duration increased from 8 to 12 seconds
• Defense Matrix range increased from 30 to 45 yards
• Defense Matrix damage reduction aura increased from 7 to 8 yards
• The ability Trash Compactor, cast by the add XD-175 Compactobot has had frequency adjustments:
  • Initial cast delay reduced between 5 and 15 seconds to a consistent 5 seconds
  • Frequency reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds
• Berserk Timer is 6 minutes down from 10

Assembly of Iron

• Damage and healing of all abilities increased across all raid sizes and modes
• Rune of Death periodic damage is increased
• Electrical Charge healing increased
• Static Disruption has been re-added to the encounter
• (25 Player) Overwhelming power debuff duration reduced to 25 seconds from 35 seconds
• (25 Player) Meltdown duration reduced to 25 seconds from 35 seconds

Kologarn

• Crunch Armor now stacks and the duration is increased to 20 seconds from 6 seconds
• Focused Eyebeam damage increased
• Focused Eyebeam may target tanks
• Focused Eyebeam will no longer whisper players to inform them that “Kologarn focuses his eyes on you!”
• Petrifying Breath will now cast when no players are near Kologarn, even if the boss is being directly attacked
• (10 Player) Rumble damage increased, and range increased from 7 to 10 yards
• Stone Grip periodic damage increased
• Stone Shout damage increased
• (25 Player) Stone Nova damage increased
• Squeezed Lifeless duration reduced to 10 seconds (up from 15) and will kill players at the end of the duration
• Falling Rubble will no longer cancel an active cast of Stone Grip.

Auriaya

• Sanctum Sentry – Strength of the Pack damage buff increased from 30% to 50%
• Sanctum Sentry – Savage Pounce range increased from 8-25 yards to 8-30 yards
• (25 Player) Savage Pounce damage increased
• Seeping Essence Stalker – Seeping Feral Essence damage increased
• Sonic Screech damage increased
• Terrifying Screech fear duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds

Hodir

• Shatter Chest will now occur at 120 seconds rather than 180 seconds.
• The Mage NPC spell Toasty Fire has an added Initial Cast Delay of 10 seconds
• The Shaman NPC spell Storm Clould has an added Initial Cast Delay of 27 seconds
  • Developer’s Note: The original delay of these spells had variability. For example Toasty Fire actually had an initial cast delay of 10 to 15 seconds. Given that Hodir is an intense DPS race we don’t want players to feel compelled to reset or wipe in order to get the ideal minimum delay of 10 seconds before the initial cast of Toasty Fire so we’ve removed the upper end of the original delay and guaranteeing the cast at 10. This is still a significant increase to the difficulty of the fight given the strict timer on the Hard-Mode chest.

Thorim

• (25 Player) Iron Ring Guard will now hit all targets in a 10 yard radius with the spell Whirling Trip instead of just the tank
• Aura of Celerity no longer buffs the MC’ing Priest’s entire raid and now only buffs the party of the MC’ing Priest
• Aura of Celerity Radius increased from 30 to 40 yards
• Chain Lightning may now chain to up to 99 targets (up from 8)
  • Developer’s Note: I’m Sorry…
• Supercharged affects damage of all schools, not just physical
• Whirling Trip may now chain to up to 5 targets in a 10 yard radius
• Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike initial cast delay reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds and the frequency has increased from every 25 seconds to every 20 seconds.
  • Unbalancing Strike cast has increased in “priority” amongst the boss’s actions
    • Developer’s Note: This makes Unbalancing Strike share cast priority with Chain Lightning. It’s not exactly clear what the implications of this change are but it’s what shows up in the original data. Let’s find out together! Weeeeee!
• Thorim’s Chain Lightning cast frequency increased to 8 seconds up from 12 seconds
  • Developer’ Note: Thorim will now cast this spell directly instead of buffering it with a target filter that removed potential melee targets if Thorim was just about to or had recently cast the spell Lightning Charge. Sorry Melee…
• Thorim’s base damage as increased across all raid sizes and difficulties
• Runic Colossus will not cancel an active cast of Runic Smash when he enters combat.

Freya

• Tidal Wave’s defense category changed from Magic to None
• Tidal Wave’s Prevention Category changed from Silence to None
• Unstable Energy periodic damage increased
• (25 Player) Brightleaf’s Essence damage buffs to Lashers and Freya increased from 50 to 60%
• (25 Player) Growth of Nature’s health mod increased from 20 to 30%
• (25 Player) Iron Roots periodic damage increased
• (25 Player) Stonebark’s Essence damage mod increased from 50 to 75%
• (25 Player) The ability Displace Roots has been re-added to Guardian Lasher trash mobs leading up to Freya

Freya (Elder Ironbranch)

• Iron Roots spell category is no longer categorized as a root effect.
  • Developer’s Note: This effectively means that certain talents and abilities that prevent or remove roots will not prevent this root effect

Mimiron

• Plasma Blast periodic damage increased
• Deafening Siren silence radius increased from 10 yards to 15 yards
• Emergency Mode (Cannon) damage and health increased
• Emergency Mode (Mimiron) damage and health increased
• Flames damage increased
• Ice Turret’s defense category changed from Magic to None
• Ice Turret’s prevention category changed from Silence to None
• Rocket Strike’s speed increased from 7y/sec to 10y/sec
• Rocket Strike duration reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds
• (25 Player) Explosion damage increased
• (25 Player) Heat Wave base damage and periodic increased
• (25 Player) Ice Nova damage increased

General Vezax

• (10 Player) Recast delay of Shadow crash changed from a range of 10-15 seconds to a flat 10 seconds
• (25 Player) Recast delay of Shadow crash changed from a range of 10-15 seconds to a flat 7 seconds
• Boss and add damage and health increased across all raid sizes and difficulties

Yogg-Saron

• (25 Player) Yogg-Saron Health Increased

• Boil Ominously range increased from 7 yards to 8 yards

• Diminish Power now stacks up to 4 times

• Focused Anger Duration proc cooldown removed

• Focused Anger can now proc from any damage, not just player damage

• Guardian of Yogg-Saron may now cast Dominate Mind

  • Initial Cast Delay of 15 seconds
  • Recast frequency is 5-10 seconds

• The cast frequency of Drain Life cast by Immortal Guardians and Marked Immortal guardians has been reduced from 20-30 seconds to 10 seconds

• Constrictor Tentacles no longer despawn on the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3

• Guardians of Yogg-Saron spawn more frequently in Phase 1

• Crusher Tentacles Spawn more frequently in Phase 2

Algalon the Observer

• Damage has been increased across the board in all raid sizes and difficulties
• Boss Melee attack damage increased and attack speed slowed down.

Greetings,

Just wanted to add a few other issues that we are aware of and are working on fixes for:

• Players may experience frequent crashes when using Kill Shot or Frost Trap. Please avoid using these spells for the time being.
• When you are piloting a Demolisher vehicle and it is destroyed, you may not be able to use all Demolisher abilities when piloting another Demolisher vehicle.
  • As a workaround, relogging will restore the ability to use all Demolisher abilities
• Long cooldowns such as Heroism and Bloodlust are not currently resetting on Ulduar Raid encounters after the encounters end.

Additionally, to facilitate the testing of bosses after XT-002 we have added a teleporter skip to take players to the Antechamber of Ulduar even if XT-002 has not yet been defeated. You will need to engage Flame Leviathan at least once to activate the teleporters in Ulduar.

Thanks to everyone who has joined us for testing so far!

Quick update for Kill Shot.

We’ve sent a hotfix that will temporarily remove the spell visual from Kill Shot. This should prevent the crash for now while we work on a full fix. Frost Trap may still lead to crashes, however.