- Author: Passion
- Date: February 15, 2024
- Updated: February 15, 2024
- Expansion: WoW Classic
Letting us know what is coming in advance for once, we have received the preliminary patch notes for the first big tuning update for Season of Discovery.
Starting strong, Bear Druids are seeing two very important buffs. Swipe will now scale with Attack Power, and generate significantly more threat. Berserk will now also cause Lacerate to hit 3 targets, instead of only Mangle. Both of combined should go a long way towards making Bear Druids a viable tank for all situations. For Cat Druids, Rip will now last 16 seconds instead of 12 seconds, giving them a little more leeway to maintain Savage Roar. Finally, Starsurge will now boost the damage of the next Starfire by 80%, up from 66%. A bug causing this bonus to be lower has also been corrected. Hopefully this change is enough to keep Balance Druids competitive.
Shamans have also received a few changes, all aimed towards Enhancement DPS. Dual Wield Specialization will now give a 50% damage bonus to offhand swings, boosting dual wield DPS significantly. Lava Lash will gain 50% increased damage if you have Flametongue on your offhand, up from the 20% it previously had. Finally, Maelstrom Weapon will have a roughly 50% higher chance to proc with Windfury on your main hand or two handed weapon. These last two changes are likely intended to steer Enhancement DPS away from Rockbiter Weapon and towards Windfury main-hand, Flametongue off-hand, similar to future expansions.
In a fantastic change that I’m sure many will be overjoyed to see, Conjure Water Rank 5 will now conjure a full stack every cast, instead of only 2. The tooltip will not be adjusted accordingly for the time being. This means that Mages will no longer have to wake up at 6 AM just to conjure water for their 8 PM raids.
Finally, Art of War for Paladins will now reduce the mana cost of Exorcism and Holy Shock while active. Beacon of Light has also had its base mana cost greatly decreased, though no specifics are given. These particular changes went live with the February 14th Hotfix.
With the exception of the Paladin changes, this is expected to go live on February 20th for NA Realms and the 21st for EU Realms.
With scheduled weekly maintenance in each region, we’ll make the following adjustments to a few classes in Season of Discovery.
Druid
- Swipe now scales with attack power, gaining 10% of attack power as damage. Threat caused by Swipe has been greatly increased.
- The Berserk rune now also causes Lacerate to hit 3 targets.
- The duration of Rip has been increased to 16 seconds (was 12 seconds).
- The next Starfire cast after the Starsurge rune ability now has its damage increased to 80% (was 66%).
- Corrected a bug causing this bonus damage to be lower than intended at level 40.
Shaman
- The Dual-Wield Specialization rune now provides 50% bonus damage to your offhand weapon swings.
- Lava Lash now gains 50% increased damage if Flametongue Weapon is imbued on your offhand.
- The proc chance of Maelstrom Weapon is now roughly 50% higher when your main hand weapon or your two-hand weapon is imbued with Windfury Weapon.
Mage
- Conjure Water (Rank 5) will now conjure a full stack of 20 with each cast (was 2).
- Developers’ notes: The tooltip will still indicate that only 2 are conjured. We hope to adjust the tooltip in the future.
Paladin
- Art of War now reduces the mana cost of Exorcism and Holy Shock by 80% when active.
- Beacon of Light base mana cost has been greatly decreased.
The Paladin changes above were activated on all Season of Discovery realms yesterday, February 14. In this region, the rest of the changes above will go live on February 20.
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