Dragonflight Hotfix Roundup: More Time Rift Fixes, Paladin and Mage Nerfs

Author: Astrael
Date: July 20, 2023
Updated: July 20, 2023
Expansion: World of Warcraft

The hotfixes continue to roll en masse! Over the last few days, there have been fixes to address an array of issues with Augmentation Evoker, Protection and Holy Paladin, Balance Druid, and Shaman PVE spells. Sorry, Mages! Following the weekly restart, all Mage specs will see a nerf to AoE spells, as well as a decrease in Fire single-target damage. These changes are in response to Blizzard developers reporting that Mage AoE damange was “trending higher than [they were] comfortable with.” Holy Paladins also were identified as overperforming, and consequently, their healing and damage capabilities will also be scaled down.

PvP class specs also received a few additional fixes, including another adjustment to Holy Paladins, this time decreasing mana pools that were “more plentiful” than intended.

Events (including Time Rifts and Secrets of Naxxramas) and dungeon mechanics received another slew of fixes to both visual and functional bugs. Roshok, the Elder inside Mythic Aberrus will receive a damage reduction of 6.5-12% to several mechanics with weekly restarts.

There are a ton of fixes since our last update, so for the full breakdown, check out the notes below!

Blizzard – (Source)

JULY 19, 2023

Achievements

The Draconically Superior and Draconically Epic achievements should now only be granted to players who earned them.

Classes

Evoker
- Augmentation
  - Fixed an issue causing Time Skip’s animation to occasionally freeze.
  - Fixed an issue that allowed Prescience to be able to be cast on pets and guardians.
Mage
- Arcane
  - Fixed an issue that caused Concentrated Power to make the echoed Arcane Explosion deal more damage than intended.
Paladin
- Fixed an issue causing Divine Toll to hit an incorrect number of targets.
- Protection
  - Fixed an issue causing Shining Light to fail to be consumed by a Word of Glory cast when Divine Purpose was also active.

Dungeons and Raids

Dawn of the Infinite
- Resolved an issue that caused Chrono-Lord Deios and Chromie to not speak their voice over lines when Deios cast Infinite Corruption.
- Resolved an audio issue that caused Chrono-Lord Deios to not use positional-audio for his voice over lines.
- Resolved an issue that caused Chrono-Lord Deios to interrupt his phase 2 start and phase 2 end lines with ability cast lines.
- Resolved an audio issue that caused Iridikron’s relic to make sounds during the Chrono-Lord Deios encounter.

Events

Little Scales Daycare
- Fixed an issue where certain quests were repeatable, rather than daily, as intended.
Secrets of Naxxramas
- Developers’ note: We’ve seen feedback that the rewards from Dented Raider tokens are often underwhelming, and agree that there is room for improvement. We hope that these changes help mitigate some of the frustration experienced by heavily engaged players committed to acquiring their Tier 3 sets, but we’d like to emphasize that these items are still intended to be quite rare.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Rare items dropping from Dented Raider tokens.
- The drop rates for Phylacterweave and Lamented Crusader items have been slightly increased.
Time Rifts
- Fixed an issue where the “Book of Kel’Thuzad” could be seen wandering around Tyrhold Reservoir outside of the Time Rifts event
- The Field Despair Magnet effect is now removed when leaving a Time Rift event.
- When the stage “Into the Rift!” begins, players should no longer be carrying timey-whimey objects they picked up from alternate timeways.
- Frozen Croc-Bait now correctly despawns when Time Rift portals open to alternate timelines.
- To ease some performance issues in Time Rifts, the maximum target number of players in Thaldraszus has been lowered, particularly while the Time Rift event is active.
  - Developers’ note: We continue to keep a very close eye on this.

Items

Fixed an issue that caused some belts to go missing when worn by Mechagnomes.

JULY 18, 2023

Classes

Druid
- Balance
  - Fixed a bug that could cause Shooting Stars to hit enemies not affected by Moonfire or Sunfire.
Evoker
- Augmentation
  - Spatial Paradox now increases the range of melee spells for Paladins, Monks, and Druids. It now also increases the radius of Ancient Teachings and Stampeding Roar while it is active.
  - A single player may now only benefit from a maximum of 4 each of the Ebon Might, Prescience, and Shifting Sands effects.
  - Breath of Eons can no longer proc the Fate Mirror effect.
Mage [With weekly restarts]
- Developers’ notes: Mage AoE damage is generally trending a little higher than we’re comfortable with after the most recent update. We’re planning to make a few targeted adjustments to Mage AoE spells to bring them down to a more reasonable level. In addition to the AoE adjustments, Fire will be seeing some additional tuning, as Fire single-target damage is also trending higher than intended.
- Arcane
  - Arcane Barrage damage increased by 3%.
  - Resonance increases the damage per target hit by Arcane Barrage by 10% (was 12%).
  - Arcane Explosion damage reduced by 6%.
  - Arcane Orb damage reduced by 8%.
- Fire
  - Damage of all abilities reduced by 5%.
  - Flamestrike damage reduced by 6% and now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  - Flame Patch damage reduced by 6% and now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  - Sun King’s Blessing causes your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike to deal 260% increased damage (was 275%).
- Frost
  - Frozen Orb damage reduced by 5%.
  - Blizzard damage reduced by 4%.
  - Comet Storm damage reduced by 5%.
  - Subzero damage to rooted and frozen targets reduced to 5/10%.
Paladin [With weekly restarts]
- Developers’ notes: Holy Paladin is overperforming in all content in Fractures of Time. We are targeting a global decrease of healing and damage as we are not looking to change preferred playstyles, but Tyr’s Deliverance will also be receiving additional adjustments as this talent in particular has been more effective than we would like.
- Holy
  - All healing decreased by 8%.
  - All damage decreased by 12%.
  - Tyr’s Deliverance healing decreased by 15%.
Shaman
- Fixed an issue where area-of-effect damaging spells and abilities were not properly converting damage to healing while under the effects of Ancestral Guidance.

Dungeons and Raids

Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible
- Rashok, the Elder [With weekly restarts]
  - Searing Slam base damage reduced by 6.5% in Mythic difficulty.
  - Overcharged damage reduced by 10% in Mythic difficulty.
  - Conduit Flare damage reduced by 12% in Mythic difficulty.
  - Fixed an issue where killing Conduit Guardians near Rashok can cause him to not gain energy.
Dawn of the Infinite
- Iridikron
  - Fixed an issue where Iridikron would sometimes run out of melee range during Stonecracker Barrage.

Items

Echoing Tyrstone’s functionality has been updated to split heal targets in its range and deal increased healing based on how many targets received it (was a heal to all nearby allies for a flat amount). The amount of healing that can be recorded is increased by 70%.
Echoing Tyrstone no longer targets pets.
- Developers’ notes: We’ve made this change as we’ve seen this trinket performing strongly in raids to the point of competing with major class cooldowns, but its performance overall is varied based largely on how many people are with the healer. We’re hoping that this change to its functionality will help stabilize its performance in both dungeons and raids so that it doesn’t under, or over perform as much as it currently does.
Fixed a bug causing Quantum transmog items to reward Dracthyr cloth transmog instead of mail.

Player versus Player

Resolved an issue that could prevent the Farm base status icon status from updating correctly in Deepwind Gorge.

Hunter
- Intimidation’s cooldown will no longer be consumed when attempting to stun a Subtlety Rogue during Shadowy Duel.
- Aspect of the Turtle will now protect Hunters from a Monk’s Ring of Peace knockback.
Paladin [With weekly restarts]
- Developers’ notes: Holy Paladins’ mana pools have been more plentiful than we would like in PvP. We’re targeting their base Mana regeneration to encourage player engagement with the variety of mana talents available.
- Holy
  - Holy Paladins now regenerate 55% less Mana in PvP combat (was 25%).
  - Fixed a bug that caused Greater Judgment to not be affected by Dampening.

Professions

Engineering
- Nixx Sprocketspring is now less persistent about training Goblin Engineering schematics when trying to progress the quest “Short Circuit”.

Quests

Fixed an issue where weapons were not properly hiding while racing as a whelp during “Zhoomsa.”

Time Rifts

[With weekly restarts] Weekly Time Rifts quests will now award account-bound items that provide Paracausal Flakes and reputation with Soridormi (was directly awarded).
Time Rift weekly quests no longer grant a Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragment. Each player-character can now earn 10 Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments by defeating their first Fractured Causality each week.
Weekly Time Rifts quests will now award account-bound items that provide Paracausal Flakes and reputation with Soridormi instead of awarding those directly.
Shi Everbreeze in Tyrhold Reservoir now sells a Paracausal Crate, allowing players to send Paracausal Flakes between characters.
Fixed a bug where Paracausal Fragment of Thunderfin, Humid Blade of the Tideseeker’s effect does not trigger on melee abilities.
Fixed a bug where Paracausal Fragment of Azzinoth’s effect would attack enemies you are not yet in combat with.
Fixed a bug where Paracausal Fragment of Frostmourne’s passive effect would break stealth.
Fixed a bug where Paracausal Fragment of Frostmourne would not activate the healer transformation on use when used by a healer.
Fixed a bug where Paracausal Fragment of Sulfuras’ AOE damage effect would not trigger from ranged abilities.
Soridormi should now display her friendship faction on her gossip pane.
Resolved an issue where the map marker for Time Rifts would occasionally display the incorrect invading groups during the 5 minutes prior to the event beginning.

Wrath of the Lich King Classic

Titan Rune Dungeons – Protocol Alpha and Beta
- Azure Ring Captains will no longer proc mirror images.
- Mage-Lord Urom will no longer have mirror images proc when Empowered Arcane Explosion is cast.

JULY 14, 2023

Classes

Druid
- Guardian
  - Fixed an issue preventing Ursoc’s Fury from benefiting from Flashing Claws’ Thrash casts.
Evoker
- Augmentation
  - Upheaval will no longer cast if your target leaves your line of sight.
  - Upheaval will no longer go on cooldown and fail to deal damage if you are crowd controlled at the same time as completing your empower cast.
  - Adjusted Fate Mirror’s visual to be less overwhelming when many instances of damage occur in a short period of time.
- Preservation
  - Fixed an issue where Temporal Anomaly’s absorption cap could be miscalculated when shielding multiple allies at once.
Paladin
- Holy
  - Fixed an issue where Daybreak may cause enemy targets to incorrectly change their target or facing when used.
Priest
- Holy
  - Fixed an issue causing Empyreal Blaze to be usable while silenced.
  - Epiphany should now correctly trigger from Holy Word: Chastise.
  - Updated Epiphany to trigger more consistently.
Shaman
- Restoration
  - Fixed an issue causing Downpour to cost more mana than intended.

Dungeons and Raids

Dawn of the Infinite
- Fixed an issue that caused Temporal Deviations to ignore combat when respawning during the Twisted Timeways, prior to Time-Lost Battlefield and Morchie.
- Fixed an issue with the Infinite Slayer’s animations during Infinite Fury and Bronze Exhalation.
- Fixed an issue where Timeline Marauder’s Infinite Schism visual effect could fail to appear on certain environmental terrains.
- Increased the engagement distance of Timeline Mauraders.
- Manifested Timeways
  - Fixed an issue that could cause Manifested Timeways to attack players during the initial conversation between Manifested Timeways, Chromie, and Nozdormu.
- Time-Lost Battlefield
  - Fixed an issue where Kaboom! cast by Dwarven Bombers and Goblin Sappers could fail to inflict damage if the explosions were rapidly cast.
  - Fixed an issue where the Alliance Destroyer and Horde Destroyer could fire Volatile Mortar outside of the encounter arena.
  - Fixed an issue that can cause players to experience line of sight failures in the encounter arena after defeating the encounter.
- Chrono-Lord Deios
  - Fixed an issue where the final group of enemies before the boss encounter could be attacked while performing their intro conversation.
  - Fixed an issue that could cause a single Infinity Orb to be created when casting Infinity Orb.
  - Fixed an issue that could cause a Proto-Aspect Dragon to become stuck on the terrain.
  - Fixed an issue that caused Infinite Keeper’s Infinite Blast to appear as interruptible in the Chrono-Lord Deios Adventure Guide.

Events

Secrets of Naxxramas
- Eyes of Naxxramas should now correctly drop Ward of Naxxramas for eligible players while in a group. Remember to equip your Argent Dawn Commission!
Time Rifts
- Enemies now spawn in 1.5-2.5 seconds (was 2-4 seconds).
- All Black Empire areas now spawn more enemies.
- All northern spawn locations now spawn least one Elite enemy.
- The following enemies are now Elite and grant 5 Temporal Essence:
  - Walking Nightmare
  - Klaxxi Monstrosity
  - Great Glorious Alliance Lieutenant
  - Blood Horde Reaver
  - Murloc Gillbeater
  - High Keeper Orendi
  - Timestream Anomaly
- Added additional jetpacks and increased their size in the Warlands Time Rift scenario.
- Plagued Grain, Stinky Crate of Fish, Stinky Barrel of Fish, and Stinky Pile of Fish no longer make your character walk wobbly.
- Fixed an issue where players not on the Time Rift objective “Freezer Born” could ride the Rotting Colossus.
- Fixed an issue where the Temporal Essence count could reset a few seconds after the event starts.

Items and Rewards

All gear granted from Gear Update and Boosts has had its item level increased by 13. This change is retroactive, so if you Boosted or Gear Updated in the past, your gear will update to the new item level automatically.

Player versus Player

Evoker
- Dreamwalker’s Embrace snare effect should now properly be removed by spells like Blessing of Freedom.
Priest
- Holy
  - Fixed an issue causing Spirit of the Redeemer to be usable while silenced.
  - Silence effects are no longer applied to the Priest while in Spirit of Redemption.