wow Patch 9.2.5 Survival Guide - Everything Coming in the World of Warcraft Update

[Stan 5,239]

We have a survival guide for Patch 9.2.5 with everything coming in the latest Shadowlands update. Check it out!

Everything Coming in Patch 9.2.5

Class Changes

Even though the update doesn't primarily focus on class changes, we have some minor ones worth checking out.

Death Knight

PvP Talents

• Dome of Ancient Shadow has been removed.

Hunter

Baseline

• Kill Command - Give the command to kill, causing your pet to savagely deal [ 153.1% 159% of Attack Power ] Physical damage to the enemy.

Beast Mastery

• Bestial Wrath - Sends you and your pet into a rage, instantly dealing [ 77.1% 80.1% of Attack Power ] Physical damage to its target, and increasing all damage you both deal by 25% for 15 sec. Removes Fear and Horrify all crowd control effects from your pet.
• Bloodshed (Level 50 talent) - Command your pet to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed for [ 178% 184.9% of Attack Power ] over 18 sec and increase all damage taken from your pet by 15% for 18 sec.

Legendary Powers

• Wildfire Cluster - Wildfire Bomb drops an additional cluster of bombs around the target, each exploding for [ 33% of Attack Power ] Fire damage. Damage is reduced beyond 8 targets.

Monk

Windwalker

• Windwalker Monk (Spec Aura) - All damage and healing increased by 4%.

Paladin

PvP Talents

• Divine Favor - Your next Holy Light or Flash of Light is increased by 50% 40%, casts 30% faster, and is unable to be interrupted.

Priest

PvP Talents

• Miracle Worker - Holy Word: Serenity now has 2 charges and a 20% 10% reduced cooldown.

Warlock

Legendary Powers

• Implosive Potential - Implosion grants 1% haste for 12 sec for each Imp exploded. When this damages at least 3 targets, instead gain 5% haste per Imp. A maximum of 15 exploded Imps can grant this benefit.

PvP Talents

• Demon Armor has been removed.
• Shadowfall (New PvP Talent) added. Gain the Nightfall talent with 100% increased chance to gain its effect. If you already have this talent, you may select another in the same row.

Cross-Faction Gameplay

In Patch 9.2.5 you can engage in certain types of content with the opposite faction. This includes Mythic Dungeons, Rated PvP, Raids, and Legacy raids.

• You can't do outdoor world content and matchmaking activities (LFR or Normal/Heroic dungeons, Random Battlegrounds, Arena Skirmishes) with players of the opposite faction.
• Guilds will remain single faction.
• Communities can be cross-faction and they act like guilds.
• You cannot walk up to a player of the opposite faction and invite them. You must be members of the same cross-faction community, Battle.net friends, or the person must be listed in the premade Group Finder tool.
• The system comes with some restrictions that you will find here.

New Race-Specific Questlines

Dark Iron Dwarves at Level 50 who completed their Heritage Armor questline can embark on a new quest to earn a mount and Heritage Weapons. The weapons can be used for transmog without any restrictions. Here's Grimhowl, the mount you can get.

Blood Elves Exalted with Silvermoon City can start a new questline in Oribos that rewards a Green Hawkstrider mount and a polearm (Veil-Touched Ranseur).

Blood Elf Paladins will additionally gain a Blood Knight armor set.

New Enigma Arena

The Zereth Mortis Arena will become available in the Patch 9.2.5 update.

Encrypted Content

Blizzard stepped up the game with encryption in Patch 9.2.5. There's a ton of encrypted content related to Brill, Lordaeron, Calia Menethil, and the Forsaken in the new patch.

• One of the splash screens is encrypted in Patch 9.2.5. 
• There's a rumor of an Allied Race coming as a Dragonflight pre-order bonus circulating in the community. The theory points toward Darkfallen, which are Night Elves and Blood Elves with reddish eyes.
• There's a new questline taking place in Tirisfal Glades. A new minimap, suggesting Brill will be remade. The map of Lordaeron refers to the post-blight stage.
• Brill got a new flight path in 9.2.5.
• We know the encrypted Lordaeron content has something to do with Calia Menethil. One quest named Eyes of the Wolf wasn't encrypted. Still, it doesn't give much away.
• There is an encrypted armor set.
• Patch 9.2.5 could be the new standard when it comes to hiding content until the update hits live servers.

Torghast Wings Availability

Torghast will have all its wings open in Patch 9.2.5. They will no longer be on a rotation.

New Stay Awhile and Listen Conversations

We have two endgame gossip dialogues available in 9.2.5. The first one's between Jaina and Khadgar.

The second dialogue is available between Taelia and Bolvar Fordragon.

Updated Reporting Tools

The report player tool has been updated in Patch 9.2.5. We covered the changes in a separate post. Here's a preview of the new report UI.

Social Contract in World of Warcraft

Social Contract is a new policy that you must accept before playing World of Warcraft or leave the game. It's also coming to Wrath Classic.

Flying Lupine Mount Animation Updated

The Heartbond Lupine is getting a brand new flying animation in Patch 9.2.5.

Updates to Stormwind and Orgrimmar

Stormwind and Orgrimmar have been updated with new stable areas and their purpose is still unknown.

Renown Catch-Up Improvements

• Broker Mark of Distinction will increase the Renown of your active Covenant to 60 (up from 40).
• Renown catch-up is accelerated through Renown 60 (was 48).
• You'll gain 1 Renown from the following activities in Patch 9.2.5: Mythic and Mythic+ Dungeons, Torghast Layers 9-16, defeating Shadowlands raid bosses and winning Rated Battlegrounds.

New Oribos Portals

In preparation for Shadowlands Season 4, Blizzard is adding new portals to Oribos to make it easier for players to reach the new dungeon locations.

Legendary Leveling Improvements

Leveling up base items for Legendaries will become a lot easier in Patch 9.2.5! The experience required to reach higher base item ranks has been drastically reduced to allow more players to engage in the system late in the expansion.

It only takes 3 crafts per rank to reach the next Base Item rank in Patch 9.2.5

This article was partially inspired by MrGM's video linked below. The post contains some information not present in the video. Let me know in the comments down below if there's anything else missing!

[Manbearpig 28]

Some of these are already live. Mostly classtuning though.

[skitzy129 4]

There's just nothing really here to get excited about unfortunately.  Torghast rotation being turned off should've already happened and likely could've been done literally at any time.  Everyone that cares and is still playing has their legendaries now, changes are coming after the playerbase has already grinded through it.  Social contract means basically nothing.  Hopefully that encrypted content has something to actually do.

Tuning changes like Hunter Bloodshed just show Blizzard still doesn't get it.  It's not the damage output that's the issue with a talent on a row like that, it's that it's cooldown and windows of opportunity are clunky and bad so unless it does far more damage than the other talents in its row nobody will put up with that.  Buffing the damage by a couple percent does nothing to make the talent more attractive, you need to overhaul its useability. 

[Lithari 194]

I wonder how much the 'Social Contract' will be abused.

[Environment 28]

45 minutes ago, Lithari said:

I wonder how much the 'Social Contract' will be abused.

How can it be abused? It seems like you are just looking for something to be upset by

[Lithari 194]

23 minutes ago, Environment said:

How can it be abused? It seems like you are just looking for something to be upset by

Well, you can say something like in a form of criticism of how they are playing their class or something, not to cause malice, but to let them know that they could try it another way and may do better the next time and they could misunderstand it as hate or something and report them....just saying, some players can be quite petty and would report the ones that they don't like or want in a group and not for the reasons you might think.

 

This is why when someone suggested a rating system in rocket league, those that were toxic could get a bad rating and the worst rating you get, the less likely you will be paired up with others in the matchmaking process.....it would get abused, it would isolate players that are not super good and not those super toxic....if you get what i mean.

[Rhondis 148]

7 hours ago, Lithari said:

Well, you can say something like in a form of criticism of how they are playing their class or something, not to cause malice, but to let them know that they could try it another way and may do better the next time and they could misunderstand it as hate or something and report them....just saying, some players can be quite petty and would report the ones that they don't like or want in a group and not for the reasons you might think.

 

This is why when someone suggested a rating system in rocket league, those that were toxic could get a bad rating and the worst rating you get, the less likely you will be paired up with others in the matchmaking process.....it would get abused, it would isolate players that are not super good and not those super toxic....if you get what i mean.

I second this. 

 

8 hours ago, Environment said:

How can it be abused? It seems like you are just looking for something to be upset by

It's not so much looking for something to be upset about. In all honesty all of WoW fanbase tends to look for something to be upset about either way. But that's a moot point here. Any new system being added can cause reason for concern if people find ways to abuse it. And if you ever pugged in a M+ or raiding, people can be pretty petty such as what Lithari said.

[Lithari 194]

1 hour ago, Rhondis said:

I second this. 

 

It's not so much looking for something to be upset about. In all honesty all of WoW fanbase tends to look for something to be upset about either way. But that's a moot point here. Any new system being added can cause reason for concern if people find ways to abuse it. And if you ever pugged in a M+ or raiding, people can be pretty petty such as what Lithari said.

I think any false reports of violations of this social contract should result in the same punishment as someone who would have violated the these rules and got reported....a false accusation should be punishable with the same punishment as the rule breaker...it would dissuade any false reports.

[Prophet001 598]

20 hours ago, Environment said:

How can it be abused? It seems like you are just looking for something to be upset by

By misunderstanding what the word 'hate' means.

[Rhondis 148]

15 hours ago, Lithari said:

I think any false reports of violations of this social contract should result in the same punishment as someone who would have violated the these rules and got reported....a false accusation should be punishable with the same punishment as the rule breaker...it would dissuade any false reports.

I wholly agree. But it all just depends on how Blizzard handles these kinds of reports, and their track history has been so and so. I guess we will have to see how this will go in the coming months.

[Lithari 194]

2 hours ago, Rhondis said:

I wholly agree. But it all just depends on how Blizzard handles these kinds of reports, and their track history has been so and so. I guess we will have to see how this will go in the coming months.

They will probably not have the spine to do anything about it, cause while some will be misunderstanding what hate means, others could be cause of woke opinions and someone disagrees, regardless of how friendly they were when they disagreed, will be seen as hateful to the woke person.......that is also likely going to be the problem as well, maybe not as common as the misunderstanding possibility....both can however be abused......'you disagree? you bigot....reported' you see what i mean? this is why punishments for false reporting should be punished, unless its a clear misunderstanding and the reporter realises it and says sorry, i misunderstood.....but if its the woke one.....they will never say sorry, they think they are right in everything and anyone outside of their bubble...are bigots.

 

Anyone who thinks it won't be abused are in denial, now will it be abused? yeah, it can be, now if they put in rules where false reports get punished for the same punishment as the punishment the accused would have got if it was a true report....it would prevent any or most false reports.

[ResoWho 68]

12 hours ago, Lithari said:

They will probably not have the spine to do anything about it, cause while some will be misunderstanding what hate means, others could be cause of woke opinions and someone disagrees, regardless of how friendly they were when they disagreed, will be seen as hateful to the woke person.......that is also likely going to be the problem as well, maybe not as common as the misunderstanding possibility....both can however be abused......'you disagree? you bigot....reported' you see what i mean? this is why punishments for false reporting should be punished, unless its a clear misunderstanding and the reporter realises it and says sorry, i misunderstood.....but if its the woke one.....they will never say sorry, they think they are right in everything and anyone outside of their bubble...are bigots.

 

Anyone who thinks it won't be abused are in denial, now will it be abused? yeah, it can be, now if they put in rules where false reports get punished for the same punishment as the punishment the accused would have got if it was a true report....it would prevent any or most false reports.

i think you make it a bigger problem then it is. judged by the amount of lfr advertiser i see daily and my experience with the community and m+ i dont see this to be more abused then its atm. first of all, if you dont write a ticket and "just" report someone, it needs several reports before action is taken.

also you allrdy can report people for leaving m+ keys and such things. if you critizice someone in a normal way like "hello mate, due to details i saw that you use your icy veins too rarely. i would suggest to also use it while deathborn is on CD because you can easily reset icy veins in big pulls." no one, could reasonably report you for that. if you are toxic in your critic there will be a reason to report you ofc. also up until today ive not yet have a discussion in game about woke related things, that you seem to fear so much.

Edited May 24, 2022 by ResoWho