wow Patch 7.3: Build 24539 Overview

[Stan 5,239]

Build 24539 brought Mac'Aree, Invasion Points, the long-awaited Feral Druid changes, Tier 21 Set tuning and spells that enhance Concordance of the Legionfall in various ways.

Concordance of Legionfall

We don't know yet how these spells will work, but it may have something to do with the Netherlight Crucible that hasn't been enabled yet. 

• Holy Warrior - Increases the chance for Concordance of the Legionfall to trigger for all allies within 8 yards.
• Murderous Intent - Your damage and healing is increased by 3% while Concordance of the Legionfall is active.

Secret Mount

• Lucid Nightmare is a new mount that is similar to Riddler's Mind-Worm and it's located in a secret Argus cave. Some NPCs related to the riddle were added in this build:
  • 7.3 Argus - Isle 2 Hidden Treasure Cave 2 Bunny - Kmart
  • 7.3 Argus - Isle 2 Hidden Treasure Cave 3 Bunny - Kmart
  • 7.3 Argus - Isle 2 Hidden Treasure Cave 4 Bunny - Kmart

Tier 21 Set Changes

This is the first build focusing on T21 tuning. While some bonuses haven't been implemented yet, Blizzard started to add numbers to bonuses added in the last build.

Death Knight

• Item - Death Knight T21 Blood 2P Bonus - Vampiric Blood Rune Haste

Demon Hunter

• Item - Demon Hunter T21 Havoc 2P Bonus - Eye Beam Damage
• Item - Demon Hunter T21 Havoc 4P Bonus - Haste After Eye Beam
• Item - Demon Hunter T21 Vengeance 2P Bonus - Demon Spike Parry Chance
• Item - Demon Hunter T21 Vengeance 4P Bonus - Parry Reduces Meta CD

Druid

• Item - Druid T21 Guardian 2P Bonus - Gore Proc Reduces Surv Instinct Cooldown

Hunter

• Item - Hunter T21 Beast Mastery 2P Bonus - Kill Command Damage
• Item - Hunter T21 Beast Mastery 4P Bonus - Wild Call Kill Command Reset
• Item - Hunter T21 Marksmanship 2P Bonus - Marked Shot Sometimes Shoots Twice
• Item - Hunter T21 Marksmanship 4P Bonus - Marked Shot Buffs Focus Builders
• Item - Hunter T21 Survival 2P Bonus - Flanking Strikes Buffs Raptor Strike Crit
• Item - Hunter T21 Survival 4P Bonus - Mongoose Bite Buffs Raptor Strike Damage

Rogue

• Item - Rogue T21 Assassination 2P Bonus - Envenom Increases Poison Crit Chance
• Item - Rogue T21 Assassination 4P Bonus - Poison Crit Generates Energy
• Item - Rogue T21 Outlaw 2P Bonus - Extra Saber Slash Buffs Run Through

Shaman

• Item - Shaman T21 Elemental 2P Bonus - Lava Burst Buffs Earth Shock
• Item - Shaman T21 Elemental 4P Bonus - Earth Shock Overload
• Item - Shaman T21 Enhancement 2P Bonus - Rockbiter Buffs Nature Damage
• Item - Shaman T21 Enhancement 4P Bonus - Stormstrike Resets Rockbiter
• Item - Shaman T21 Restoration 2P Bonus - Immediate Heal In Riptide Area
• Item - Shaman T21 Restoration 4P Bonus - Heal Copies to Player in Healing Rain

Class Changes

Druid

• Class changes that were discussed earlier went live with this build

Blizzard (Source)

Hi Cats,

We have a number of changes to Feral Druids coming soon. The general goals of these changes are:

• 1. Reduce (but not necessarily displace entirely) the dominance of the big three complexifying and powerful talents: Savage Roar, Jagged Wounds, and Bloodtalons. Each of those talents is (on live) winning by a large margin in terms of throughput against other talents on their rows.
• 2. Balance out the power level of the last 3 talent rows, allowing more talents builds to be viable.
• 3. Increase the skill floor and reduce how punishing it can be to error when playing the rotation.
• 4. Compensate for power-level-reductions of talents with baseline damage increase to the spec so that at the highest level, performance isn’t really affected, but the bottom of the spec is brought up.

The most major changes:

• All damage done increased by 33%.
• Jagged Wounds reduced to 20%. (down from 33%)
• Savage Roar duration increased by 50% at all combo points. Damage bonus reduced to 15%. (down from 25%)
• Bloodtalons damage bonus reduced to 25%. (down from 50%)

Looking back at the development of Feral Druid in Legion: when Savage Roar was moved from a baseline ability to the talent tree, in order to bring the power level of the ability closer to most talents (+25% damage to everything for a long duration is far stronger than most talents are), rather than reducing its damage bonus, its duration was significantly shortened instead. This contributed greatly to the overconstrained and overly punishing Feral rotation that you see on live today. Additionally, Jagged Wounds was added as a new talent, reducing the amount of free combo points Ferals had available to finishers such as Ferocious Bite (which was basically pushed out of the rotation entirely). Both talents probably would have been fine on their own, but taken together (because they were the strongest) at the live tuning values led to a more pressured Feral rotation than we felt was right.

Additionally, a few talents are being rearranged in the talent tree:

• Jagged Wounds moved to lvl 75 row. (from lvl 90 row)
• Savage Roar moved to lvl 90 row. (from lvl 75 row)
• Brutal Slash moved to lvl 90 row. (from lvl 100 row)
• Elune's Guidance moved to lvl 100 row. (from lvl 90 row)

The primary gain here is moving Brutal Slash to a sort of multitarget/AOE lvl 90 talent row along with Sabertooth (which can be well-utilized in a sustained low-target situation), giving the lvl 90 row a solid talent for dungeons. For now, we want to go with an arrangement that keeps Jagged Wounds, Savage Roar, and Bloodtalons on separate rows so the current most common live build is still possible.

Other less major changes include quality of life and tuning adjustments to some talents to balance out the rows:

• Prowl cooldown reduced to 6 sec (down from 10 sec) for all Druid specs.
• Rebirth is castable in all forms, and consequently, is no longer affected by or consumes Predatory Swiftness.
• Sabertooth damage bonus to Ferocious Bite increased to 20%.
• Incarnation: King of the Jungle energy cost reduction reduced to 50% (down from 60%) and only allows the use of Prowl once. This it to balance out that talent row with the new Jagged Wounds and to reduce the frequency of Rake stuns in PvP while still allowing Incarnation to function as an effective Vanish.
• Moment of Clarity now causes Omen of Clarity to trigger twice as often and increases the damage of the affected abilities by 25%. This is to better space out what is essentially a large energy proc and reduce slightly the impact that a single talent has on the resource income and pacing of the rotation.
• Elune's Guidance cooldown reduced to 30 sec (down from 45 sec) and combo points granted reduced to 5 + 5 over 5 seconds (down from 5 + 8 over 8 seconds).

Overall, with these changes, balance for the last 3 talent rows and consequently overall should be better in general. We expect the current most common build/playstyle of Jagged Wounds + Savage Roar + Bloodtalons to still remain one of the strongest builds, but it should no longer win by a huge margin over other competing talent builds and also should be a little less strenuous to play.

These changes should be available in an upcoming PTR build. As usual, we may make further adjustments – especially tuning – as PTR progresses.

Below is a list of full changes for Feral Druids.

• Feral Druid - damage of abilities increased by 33%
• Bloodtalons - Casting Regrowth causes your next two melee abilities to deal 25% 50% increased damage for their full duration.
• Brutal Slash is now a level 90 talent.
• Elune's Guidance - Immediately gain 5 combo points and an additional 1 combo point every 1 sec for 5 8 sec. It's now a level 100 talent with a cooldown reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
• Incarnation: King of the Jungle - An improved Cat Form that allows the use of Prowl once while in combat, causes Shred and Rake to deal damage as if stealth were active, reduces the cost of all Cat Form abilities by 50% 60%, and increases maximum Energy by 50. Lasts 30 sec. You may shapeshift in and out of this improved Cat Form for its duration.
• Jagged Wounds - Your Rip, Rake, and Thrash abilities deal the same damage as normal, but in 20% 33% less time. It's now a level 75 talent.
• Moment of Clarity - Omen of Clarity now affects the next 3 Shreds, Thrashes, or Swipes and increases their damage by 15 % triggers twice as often and increases the damage of your next Shred, Thrash, or Swipe by 25%. Your maximum Energy is increased by 30.
• Prowl - Cooldown reduced from 10 seconds.
• Predatory Swiftness - Your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to make your next Regrowth, Entangling Roots, or Rebirth or Entangling Roots instant, free, and castable in all forms.
• Rebirth - Usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Sabertooth - Ferocious Bite deals 20% 15% increased damage and always refreshes the duration of Rip.
• Savage Roar - Finishing move that grants 15% 25% increased damage to your Cat Form attacks for their full duration. Spell movet to level 90 talents. Lasts longer per combo point:
  • 1 point : 12 8 seconds
  • 2 points: 18 12 seconds
  • 3 points: 24 16 seconds
  • 4 points: 30 20 seconds
  • 5 points: 36 24 seconds

Rogue

• Weaponmaster - Your abilities have a 0% 100% chance to hit the target twice each time they deal damage.

Professions

• Enchanters can now perform Chaos Shatter to shatter a Chaos Crystal into 2 Leylight Shards

Argus

The first map known as "Argus" was renamed to Krokuun, so Argus now has three areas: Krokuun, Mac'Aree and Stygian Wake. Additionally, Vindicaar ports and Invasion points have been added to the map.