wow Patch 9.1.5 PTR Developer Notes: September 15th

[Staff 1,488]

 

Here come this week's 9.1.5 PTR notes, featuring a long list of AoE cap class changes, Legion timewalking details and a lot more! 

UPDATED: Blizzard added more info on Legion timewalking:

Updated Notes (Source)

Updated the PTR notes with:

Dungeons and Raids

• Timewalking
  • New: Legion Timewalking (Legion Timewalking dungeons are now available for testing)
    • Timewalking Dungeons: Black Rook Hold, Eye of Azshara, Darkheart Thicket, Vault of the Wardens, Neltharion’s Lair, and Court of Stars.
  • Timeworn Keystones (These features are now available for testing)
    • While Legion Timewalking is active, players can speak to Ta’hsup in Oribos to acquire a Timeworn Keystone, allowing access to max-level, Mythic+ difficulty for the 6 Legion dungeons.
    • Legion Mythic+ dungeons accessed in this way have their own set of affixes, reward loot of the same item level as Shadowlands Mythic+ dungeons, and count toward weekly Great Vault reward options.
      • Items acquired from Legion Mythic+ dungeons can be upgraded with Valor points, but will not appear in the Great Vault.
    • New Infernal affix available on Legion Timeworn Keystone level 10 or higher.

Original notes:

Dev Notes (Source)

Here are this week’s PTR notes.

Allied Races

• New character customization options for Highmountain Tauren.

Classes

• The following area-of-affect abilities are no longer maximum target capped and instead deal reduced damage beyond 5 targets:
  • Demon Hunter
    • Havoc
      • Glaive Tempest (Talent)
  • Monk
    • Spinning Crane Kick
• The following area-of-affect abilities are no longer maximum target capped and instead deal reduced damage beyond 8 targets:
  • Death Knight
    • Sacrificial Pact
    • Blood
      • Consumption (Talent)
      • Bonestorm (Talent)
    • Unholy
      • Bursting Sores
      • Reanimated Shambler (Runecarving Power)
  • Demon Hunter
    • Havoc
      • Fel Barrage (Talent)
  • Hunter
    • Beast Mastery
      • Barrage (Talent)
    • Marksmanship
      • Barrage (Talent)
  • Mage
    • Arcane
      • Arcane Echo (Talent)
    • Frost
      • Frozen Orb
  • Rogue
    • Assassination
      • Fan of Knives
      • Crimson Tempest
    • Subtlety
      • Black Powder
      • Shuriken Storm
  • Warlock
    • Demonology
      • Felguard’s Felstorm
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • Bladestorm
    • Fury
      • Bladestorm
• Death Knight
  • Abomination’s Frenzy (Necrolord Runecarving Power) now applies its 10% damage increase to all enemies damaged (was enemies pulled by Abomination Limb).
• Druid
  • Feral
    • Adaptive Swarm (Necrolord Ability) will now gain a damage bonus for its initial duration when cast during Tiger’s Fury.
    • Fixed an issue that prevented certain ranks of the Carnivorous Instinct conduit from improving auto-attack and periodic damage while Tiger’s Fury’s damage bonus is active.
    • Fixed an issue that prevented the Carnivorous Instinct conduit from affecting the damage over time of Thrash and Feral Frenzy.
• Hunter
  • Death Chakram (Necrolord Ability) now also increases all physical damage done by you and your pet to the targets damaged by 10% for 10 seconds.
• Monk
  • Windwalker
    • Spinning Crane Kick (Rank 2) now increases Spinning Crane Kick’s damage by 18% (was 15%) for each unique target struck with Blackout Kick, Tiger Palm and Rising Sun Kick in the last 20 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times (was 6).

Covenants

• Completing the Shadowlands Campaign Unlocking your third Soulbind on any character allows alternate characters joining that same Covenant to immediately unlock their second and third Soulbind.
  • This feature is now available for testing.
• Sanctums
  • Anima Conductor
    • Players who have built and upgraded their covenant’s Anima Conductors will now receive Grateful Offerings from all covenant Callings, based on the highest level of Anima Conductor they’ve upgraded.

Dungeons and Raids

• Timewalking
  • New: Legion Timewalking
    • Timewalking Mage Tower (This feature will be available in a later PTR build)
      • In 9.1.5, Legion Timewalking will become available for the first time, and with Timewalking comes a wondrous way to return to the moments of heroism from the past: Azeroth’s champions will be able to enter the Mage Tower again. The original seven different Challenges (grouped by your specialization’s role) will be available to try repeatedly, for the duration of Legion Timewalking.
      • Each Challenge comprises a series of solo encounters that must be completely survived to earn rewards, and in Legion Timewalking, they will not require that you have an Artifact, or even that you originally played Legion.
      • Success in a Mage Tower challenge will now award a Legion-themed armor set for your class. There’s also a new Achievement coming in 9.1.5 for the most well-rounded champions of the Kirin Tor. Players who complete all seven of the Challenges on different characters across their [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) account will be rewarded with a unique flying mount: the Soaring Spelltome. Additionally, Guardian druids who complete The Highlord’s Return challenge will also receive a new fel variant of the “werebear” form.

Items and Rewards

• The Heirloom vendor in Oribos now sells the following bind-on-account items:
  • Traveler’s Anima Cache that allows Anima to be taken to new covenants or sent to alternate characters.
  • Valorous Equipment Chest for Valor that contains 1 piece of item level 210 Mythic 0 gear. The chest can only be purchased by a character with a 1500 or higher Mythic+ Rating.
  • Unchained Equipment Chest for Conquest that contains 1 piece of item level 220 unranked PvP gear. The chest can only be purchased by a character with a 1600 or higher rating in any PvP bracket.

Korthia and the Maw

• Archivists’ Codex Reputation
  • The Research Reports (item upgrades) and Treatise items (bonus drops in 9.0 content) are now available for purchase account wide if a character on their account has reached the appropriate reputation Tier.
  • Players at Tier 6 can now purchase the item “Research Report: Relic Examination Techniques”, a new bind-on-account item they can send to an alt to increase the reputation granted by Relics and Relic Fragments by 50%.
  • The quest “Relic Efficiency” offered at Tier 4 now also increases the average number of Relics that will show up as bonus drops from rares and treasures as well as how many relics show up on daily quests or in weekly reward chests. This is in addition to the current reward of a 20% chance to receive double the normal Relic Fragment drops from rares and treasures.
  • Added two new quests, “Relic Clues” at Tier 3 which starts the bonus at an initial 10% chance at double Relic Fragments, and “Relic Hunter” at Tier 5 that will set the final chance for double relics at 40%. Both of these new quests will also increase the average number of relics you will see as bonus drops, on daily quests or in weekly reward chests.
    • Developers’ note: We want to improve the experience on alts looking to gear up through Korthia by providing immediate access to the upgrade unlocks and a reputation increase if a player’s main character has reached Tier 6. We also understand that the end tiers of the reputation are taking longer than we intended, especially for players with limited play time or are not powerful enough yet to delve into the rifts on Korthia. To that end we have added the new quests at Tier 3 and 5 and adjusted the one at Tier 4 to increase the Relic count from the weekly and daily rewards. This along with their other bonus of increasing the Relic Fragment drops we hope will speed up everyone’s progress to restore the Archivists’ Codex.

Pet Battles

• Flawless and family-specific Battle-Training Stones now provide a flat 2,000 experience (was the amount required to gain one level).
• Fel-Touched Battle-Training Stones now provide a flat 10,000 experience (was the amount required to gain five levels).
• Battling wild pets with a team of comparable-level pets now provides double experience. Pets on your team are eligible for this bonus if no pet on your team is more than two levels higher than any pet in the wild team.
• The experience penalty for a pet