Patch 11.1 Undermine(d) PTR Development Notes: February 4th

D.R.I.V.E.

• Fixed an issue that would result in you getting stuck in place when travelling at high speeds and colliding with certain surfaces.
• Fixed a set of issues affecting players after dismounting, including a bug that could cause the player to unintentionally spin around and a bug that could cause players to turn slower than usual.
• Resolved several other animation and sound issues.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Turbo from being earned under some intended conditions.
• Reset Race should now also reset your speed.
• Added a bounce effect for the G-99 Breakneck when it hits walls. The harder you hit, the farther you bounce!

CLASSES

• DEATH KNIGHT
  • Unholy
    • Death Coil damage reduced by 13%.
    • Magus of the Dead damage increased by 35%.
    • Doomed Bidding now summons a Magus of the Dead for 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
    • Commander of the Dead now increases the damage of Gargoyle and Army of the Dead by 45% (was 35%).
    • Gargoyle damage increased by 15%.
    • Rider of the Apocalypse
      • All Horsemen damage increased by 10%. Does not include Undeath and Trollbane’s Icy Fury.
• DEMON HUNTER
  • Activating Vengeful Retreat now enforces a brief cooldown for Felblade, similar to its behavior with Fel Rush.
  • Activating Felblade shortly after activating Vengeful Retreat will now cancel Vengeful Retreat’s movement if Felblade’s target is too close to dash to it.
  • Hero Talents
    • Fel-Scarred
      • Student of Suffering bonus Mastery value reduced by 33% and duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
  • Havoc
    • Cycle of Hatred is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
    • Fel-Scarred
      • Demonsurge now causes Metamorphosis to increase Fury generated by Demon Blades by 3 (was 5).
  • Vengeance
    • Fallout’s chance to generate Soul Fragments has been increased at lower target counts, with 1 guaranteed Soul Fragment generated when striking a single target. Maximum possible remains 5.
    • Feed the Demon is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
    • Feed the Demon now reduces the cooldown of Demon Spikes by 0.35 seconds per Soul Fragment consumed (was 0.25/0.5 seconds).
    • Fel-Scarred
      • Demonsurge damage reduced by 20%.
      • Burning Blades now deals 40% of listed ability damage over 6 seconds (was 50%).
      • Fixed an issue where Fel Devastation did not share a cooldown with Fel Desolation.
• EVOKER
  • Hero Talents
    • Flameshaper
      • Consume Flame will now properly have its radius increased when striking larger enemies.
      • Consume Flame’s damage increased to 900% of one tick of Fire Breath (was 750%).
      • Fixed an issue where Engulf’s damage was being increased by damage over time effects from other Evokers.
  • Augmentation
    • Upheavals from the Liberation of Undermine 2-set bonus no longer increase the duration of Ebon Might.
  • Devastation
    • Fire Breath’s damage over time increased by 15%.
    • Eternity Surge damage increased by 20%.
    • Scintillation triggers Eternity Surge at 40% power (was 50%).
• HUNTER
  • Beast Mastery
    • Dark Ranger
      • Black Arrow damage increased by 10%.
    • Pack Leader
      • Pack Leader Bear damage reduced by 20%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Trueshot now increases your critical strike damage by 20% (was 10%).
  • Survival
    • Mongoose Bite damage increased by 30%.
    • Raptor Strike damage increased by 10%.
    • Wildfire Bomb damage increased by 10%.
    • Pack Leader
      • Wyvern damage bonus increased to 15% (was 10%).
• MAGE
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Barrage damage increased by 20%.
    • Intuition damage bonus increased to 50% (was 20%) and its duration has been reduced to 3 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  • Fire
    • Unleashed Inferno damage bonus increased to 70% (was 60%).
    • Sun King’s Blessing damage bonus reduced to 260% (was 280%).
    • Hyperthermia chance to trigger increased.
  • Frost
    • Wintertide has been updated – Now grants 2/4% increased Icicle and Glacial Spike damage, stacking up to 2 times. Glacial Spike no longer consumes Wintertide.
      • Developers’ notes: Wintertide was proving to have a more substantial rotational impact than intended.
    • Spellslinger
      • Splintering Orbs Frost Splinter generation reduced to 4 (was 5).
      • Spellfrost Teachings chance to trigger reduced to 2% (was 2.5%).
• PALADIN
  • Retribution
    • Crusade will now consistently display the correct spell visual when Glyph of Winged Vengeance is being used.
• PRIEST
  • Shadow
    • Casting Power Infusion now adds to the duration of your current Power Infusion when using the Liberation of Undermine 4-set, up to a maximum duration of 30 seconds.
• ROGUE
  • Hero Talents
    • Deathstalker
      • Fixed several issues with Singular Focus that prevented its application from being reliable.
• SHAMAN
  • Enhancement
    • Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus – Each stack of Electrostatic Wager will now increase the damage of Crash Lightning by 18% (was 24%).
    • Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus – Electrostatic Wager will now only increase the initial damage of Crash Lightning.
      • Developers’ notes: We’ve found that the interaction between Electrostatic Wager and the cleave damage of Crash Lightning has created a more complex decision-making process than we intended for this set bonus.
    • Stormbringer
      • Awakening Storms will now grant Tempest every 4 times it occurs (was 3).
      • Voltaic Surge now increases the damage of Crash Lightning and Chain Lightning by 10% (was 15%).
• WARLOCK
  • Destruction
    • Fixed an issue where the Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus was providing higher Mastery than intended.
    • The Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus now grants 2% Mastery when a Jackpot! happens (was 3%).
• WARRIOR
  • Arms
    • Fixed some issues that could cause the new Colossus Smash and Warbreaker visuals to not display correctly.
  • Protection
    • Developer’s notes: Protection Warrior is a very active spec, requiring constant decision-making both for tanking decisions as well as managing cooldown resets and free ability uses. However, there are some elements of the current design that can lead to Protection Warrior being requiring more active play than we intend. Frequent Shield Slam cooldown resets are one part of the issue, as they occupy a large amount of the rotation and generate a significant amount of Rage. This leaves little room in the rotation to spend Rage on anything that uses the global cooldown, and coupled with most Protection major cooldowns generating a large amount of additional Rage, leads to using Ignore Pain frequently, even when it provides little or no mitigation value. To address this, we are reducing the frequency of Shield Slam cooldown resets and Rage generated by major cooldowns and in exchange, supplementing Rage generation from passive or rotational sources. It is our goal that this will make Protection easier to approach and play to start while still leaving plenty of room for skillful and active play at higher levels.
    • Chance to reset the cooldown on Shield Slam from Devastator and Strategist reduced to 25% (was 20%).
    • Ignore Pain’s icon now displays the remaining absorb amount as a percentage of the maximum absorb amount.
    • Punish reduces damage the punished target deals to you by 3% (was 4%).

DELVES

• Difficulty levels of tiers 9, 10, and 11 have been lowered.
  • Developers’ notes: In season 1, tiers above 8 were meant purely for players who wanted a challenge. Now that we have more desirable rewards such as Gilded Crests on tier 11 we wanted to review the difficulty levels of these tiers along with our philosophy behind them. We had previously balanced them with the thought that tier 11 would be a challenge for all players in the game, even up to the high mythic levels. In season 2 we are changing our philosophy for tier 11 to be the highest challenge for delve players, which means it is balanced around what fully upgraded gear players can get within the delve ecosystem as opposed to the entire game.
• Tank Brann will now receive 50% reduced healing while unconscious.
  • Developers’ notes: The creation of tank Brann means healers have a version of Brann where they can focus on healing and have aggro properly pulled off of them. In testing tank Brann we found that it was so easy to get him back up from unconscious with base healing that it meant there was no penalty for failing to heal him and therefore a lack of a challenge for healers focusing on this spec. We’ve lowered the healing he receives while unconscious to encourage healers to use their full kit to keep Brann alive.

ITEMS

• Raid Rewards
  • Torq’s Big Red Button retuned as a 2 minute effect (was 3 minutes).
  • Flarendo’s Pilot Light retuned as a 2 minute effect (was 3 minutes).
• Operation: Floodgate
  • Weapon and armor secondary stats have been adjusted.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• EVOKER
  • Hero Talents
    • Flameshaper
      • Consume Flame is now reduced by 60% in PvP combat (was 40%).
      • Engulf is now reduced by 70% in PvP combat (was 60%).
  • Devastation
    • Eternity Surge damage reduced by 20% in PvP combat.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

• The Event Scheduler now displays appropriate messaging when the list is empty.