wow Patch 7.2.5 - Official PTR Patch Notes

[Stan 5,022]

Blizzard has published the official patch notes for Patch 7.2.5.

UPDATE: OFFICIAL PATCH 7.2.5 PATCH NOTES

7.2.5 will be big in terms of class tuning. The most notable new features are Black Temple Timewalking during Burning Crusade Timewaking and the following events

• Moonkin Festival
• The Trial of Style
• Auction House Dance Party

Full Patch Notes can be found below.

Blizzard

Patch 7.2.5 Public Test Realm Patch Notes

New Features

Timewalking: The Black Temple

The time has come to join a raid of 10-30 adventurers and venture back in time to The Black Temple in Outland. You’ll be scaled to player level 70 and item level 141 on your way into this memorable highlight of the Burning Crusade expansion.

• When Burning Crusade Timewalking is active, premade groups of 10-30 players may queue for Black Temple Timewalking by speaking to Vormu in Shattrath City.

All New Story Scenario

This is a work in progress. We’ll have more details soon. The Bronze Dragonflight already went to the future and knows all about it, so we should ask them.

New Events

• Moonkin Festival
• The Trial of Style
• Auction House Dance Party

Changes

Classes

• Multiple Classes
  • Demon Spikes, Shield of the Righteous, Ironskin Brew, and Shield Block can only be extended to a maximum of three times their base duration.
  • Smart heals such as Wild Growth and Holy Word: Sanctify now favor player targets over non-player targets, regardless of their health.
• Death Knight
  • Death Coil now costs 45 runic power (was 35).
  • Death Coil damage increased by 29%.
  • Death Strike damage increased by 10%.
  • Heart Strike damage increased by 10%.
• Demon Hunter
  • Prepared now generates 100 Fury over 10 seconds (was 40 Fury over 5 seconds).
  • Havoc
    • Demon Blades’s proc chance increased to 100% (was 60%).
    • Demon Blades’s Fury generation is now 6-12 (was 12-20).
    • Demon Blades now does 50% weapon damage (was 85% weapon damage).
    • Fel Barrage no longer uses charges, and now has a 1 minute cooldown (was a 30-second recharge time). Your damaging abilities now have a chance to reduce the cooldown by 5 seconds.
    • Fel Barrage damage increased by 100%, and now deals damage over 2 seconds (was 1 second).
  • Vengeance
    • Last Resort will not absorb a killing blow of more than 200% of the player’s maximum health.
    • When Demon Spikes is activated and a Demon Spikes buff is already present, the values of the two buffs are now correctly averaged.
• Druid
  • Balance
    • Stellar Drift now increases Starfalls damage by 50% (was 60%).
    • Starsurge damage increased by 11%.
  • Guardian
    • Gore is now also activated by Maul.
    • Maul damage increased by 400%.
    • Maul cost increased to 30 Rage (was 20).
    • Maul is now on the global cooldown, and has no self-cooldown (was 3 seconds).
    • Maul damage not increased in PvP.
    • Mark of Ursol removed.
  • Restoration
    • Cultivation healing reduced by 16%.
• Hunter
  • Beast Mastery
    • Wild Call (Passive) - Your auto shot critical strikes now have a 40% chance to reduce the remaining cooldown of Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy by 3 seconds.
    • One with the Pack grants Wild Call 60% increased chance to reduce the cooldown of Dire Beast.
• Mage
  • Frost
    • Thermal Void redesigned: Increases Icy Veins’ duration by 10 seconds. Your Ice Lances against frozen targets extend your Icy Veins by an additional 1 second.
• Monk
  • Brewmaster
    • Brewmaster passive armor bonus increased to 25% (was 15%).
    • Blackout Strike now has a 14 second cooldown (was 3 seconds, modified by Haste).
    • Tiger Palm also now reduces the cooldown of Blackout Strike by 5 seconds.
    • Fortifying Brew increases Stagger by 10% (was 20%)
    • Ironskin Brew increases Stagger by 35% (was 40%).
    • Special Delivery proc chance increased to 100% (was 30%).
    • Special Delivery damage reduced by 70%.
    • Staggered damage cannot exceed 1000% of your maximum health.
    • Mastery: Elusive Brawler is now also triggered by hitting with Blackout Strike and Breath of Fire.
    • Chi Burst has been replaced by a new talent, Spitfire, for Brewmasters:
      • Spitfire: Passive. Tiger Palm has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown of Breath of Fire.
  • Mistweaver
    • Essence Font now has a 12 second cooldown and a duration of 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Essence Font cost reduced by 10%, and direct healing increased 23%.
    • Vivify healing increased by 9%.
  • Windwalker
    • Damage of most abilities increased by 5.5%.
    • Rushing Jade Wind now applies Mark of the Crane to up to 2 (was 4) nearby targets.
    • Spinning Crane Kick’s Mark of the Crane’s damage bonus per target reduced to 40% (was 50%) per target.
    • Fists of Furys range increased to 8 yards (was 5) and damage reduced by 20%.

• Paladin
  • Repentance and Blinding Light no longer deal damage.
  • Protection
    • Ardent Defender will not absorb a killing blow of more than 200% of the player’s maximum health.
  • Retribution
    • Blessing of the Ashbringer now grants 4% strength (was 2000 strength).
• Priest
  • Power Word: Barrier mana cost reduced by 37% and radius increased by 23%.
• Rogue
  • Assassination
    • Exsanguinate now causes your Bleed effects to bleed out 125% (was 100%) faster.
    • Exsanguinate now costs 20 Energy.
  • Outlaw
    • Developers’ notes: Our overall goals here include smoothing out Energy regeneration and reducing the frequency of both resource drought and Energy capping.
    • Adrenaline Rush Energy regeneration increase reduced to 50% (was 100%). Duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
    • Combat Potency proc rate increased to 30% (was 20%), and Energy per proc reduced to 10 (was 15).
    • Fortune Strikes redesigned. Now increases Combat Potency’s proc rate by 2% per point (was +1 Energy per Combat Potency proc per point).
      • Developers’ notes: The net result of the two Combat Potency and Fortune Strikes changes is that Combat Potency should generate half as much Energy, twice as often.
    • Restless Blades has returned. Finishing moves reduce the remaining cooldown on Adrenaline Rush, Between the Eyes, Sprint, Grappling Hook, Cannonball Barrage, Killing Spree, Marked for Death, Death from Above, Vanish by 0.5 seconds per combo point spent.
    • Roll the Bones
      • Developers’ notes: The distribution of the number of buffs you get from Roll the Bones has changed. On average, you will get fewer buffs. Our goal is to significantly reduce the desire to frequently recast Roll the Bones when you get 1 buff.
      • Broadsides now also increases the damage of your combo-point generating abilities by 20%.
      • Buried Treasure increases Energy regeneration by 30% (was 25%).
      • Shark Infested Waters now increases Critical strike chance by 20% (was 25%).
      • True Bearing causes Finishing moves to reduce the cooldown of many abilities by 1.0 seconds (was 2.0 seconds) per combo point.
    • Slice and Dice’s Attack speed increase reduced to 80%.
    • Slice and Dice increases Energy regeneration by 20% (was 15%).
  • Subtlety
    • Developers’ notes: Our overall goals are to remove uncontrolled player teleport from the baseline DPS rotation, to reduce the frequency of teleporting in PvP, to allow players to choose between more frequent or more impactful SShadow Dances, which equates to more frequent CC/utility or damage in PvP, to keep the PvE rotation engaging, and to make Symbols of Death more engaging.
    • All damage dealt increased by 20%.
    • Shadowstrike now hits at melee range (was a 15 yard range).
    • Shadowstrike when used out of combat, now deals 30% increased damage and teleports you up to 25 yards behind your target.
    • Shadowstep now has 2 charges for Subtlety.
    • Backstab base damage increased by 35%.
    • Backstab damage bonus from being behind the target reduced to 20% (was 30%).
    • The Quiet Knife (Artifact trait) now increases damage dealt by Backstab by 5% (was 3%) per point.
    • Shadow Dance now has 2 charges (was 3).
    • Shadow Dance is no longer on the global cooldown.
    • Shadow Dance’s base duration increased to 4 seconds (was 3 seconds).
    • Subterfuge’s duration increase to Shadow Dance reduced to 1 second (was 2 seconds).
    • Deepening Shadows now causes your finishing moves to reduce the remaining cooldown on Shadow Dance by 1.5 seconds (was 3 seconds) per combo point spent.
    • Enveloping Shadows redesigned. Deepening Shadows reduces the remaining cooldown of Shadow Dance by an additional 1.5 second per combo point spent. Shadow Dance gains 1 additional charge.
    • Deep Shadows now causes all damage you deal to be increased by 35%.
    • Master of Shadows moved to level 90 row.
    • Premeditation moved to level 100 row.
    • Marked for Death’s cooldown reduced to 40 seconds (was 60 seconds) for Subtlety
      • Developers’ notes: This is to balance it against Premeditation, which is now on the same row. It’s a buff in a raid setting, where the talent was very weak.
    • Symbols of Death redesigned. Costs 25 Energy and has a 30 second cooldown.  Invoke ancient symbols of power, empowering the next cast of several of your abilities:
      • Shadowstrike: Generates 2 additional combo points.
      • Nightblade : Deals 30% increased damage.
      • Eviscerate: Critical strike chance increased by 35%.
    • Focus Shurikens is a new passive talent available at level 70:
      • Each enemy you hit with Shuriken Storm increases the damage of your next Eviscerate by 25%, stacking up to 5 times.
        • Developers’ notes: This aims to remove maintaining Nightblade on every target from your AOE rotation on 4+ targets. Instead, Subtlety will deal increased damage during AOE by focusing it into one target.
• Shaman
  • Earth Elemental has 600% of the Shaman's armor (was 400%) and 150% HP (was 100%).
  • Earth Elemental has 6% melee crit reduction.
• Warlock
  • All Specs
    • Soul Conduit now causes every Soul Shard you spend to have a 12% (was 20%) chance to be refunded. (exception: Demonology remains at 20%)
  • Destruction
    • Developers’ Notes: Soul Shards are now divided into 10 Soul Shard Fragments for Destruction Warlocks, in order to provide more reliable, granular Soul Shard generation, prevent random overcapping of resources, rein in Soul Shard generation slightly, and reduce the number of Chaos Bolts being cast.
    • Fire and Brimstone now causes Incinerate to generate 1 Soul Shard Fragment per target.
    • Conflagrate now generates 6 Soul Shard Fragments (was 1 full Soul Shard/10 Soul Shard Fragments).
    • Conflagrate now generates double resources from hitting a second Havoc target.
    • Incinerate now generates 1 Soul Shard Fragment.
    • Incinerate now generates 2 Soul Shard Fragments on a critical strike.
    • Incinerate's mana cost reduced by 16%.
    • Immolate’s periodic damage has a 50% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard Fragment (was: periodic damage has a 15% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard).
    • Immolate’s periodic damage critical strikes have a 100% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard Fragment (was: periodic damage critical strikes have a 30% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard).
    • Shadowburn now generates 6 Soul Shard Fragments and an additional 6 if the target dies within 5 seconds.
    • Soulsnatcher (Artifact trait) now causes Chaos Bolt to have a 3% (was 5%) chance per rank to refund 1 Soul Shard.
    • Dimensional Rift (Artifact trait) now generates 3 Soul Shard Fragments
    • Chaos Bolt cast from the Chaos Bolt rift now deals 60% increased damage.
    • Chaos Bolt’s damage increased by 40%, and projectile speed increased by 25%.
    • Rain of Fire’s damage increased by 25%.
    • Reverse Entropy redesigned slightly: Chaos Bolt and Rain of Fire restore 35% of your maximum mana and deal 5% increased damage.
    • Havoc’s duration increased to 10 seconds (was 8 seconds), and cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 20 seconds).
    • Wreak Havoc no longer removes the cooldown of Havoc.
    • Channel Demonfire damage increased by 56%, and cooldown increased to 25 seconds (was 15 seconds).
    • Cataclysm cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 45 seconds), cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds (was 3 seconds), and damage reduced by 25%.
• Warrior
  • Arms
    • All abilities damage increased by 10%.
    • The effect of Mastery has reduced by 20%.
  • Protection
    • Revenge damage reduced by 12%.

Dungeons

• Added Group Finder activities for Mythic Trial of Valor and Nighthold.
• Mythic Trial of Valor and Nighthold can now be entered by cross-server groups.

Legendary Items

• Demon Hunter
  • Havoc
    • Anger of the Half-Giants generates an additional 1 to 3 Fury when Demon Blades is talented (was 1 to 6 Fury).
• Warlock
  • Destruction
    • Feretory of Souls
      • Casting a damaging Fire spell has a 6% (was 10%) chance to generate a Soul Shard.
    • Odr, Shawl of the Ymirjar
      • Enemies marked by your Havoc take 15% (was 8%) increased damage from your single target spells.

UI

• Arsenal: Armaments of the Silver Hand now includes the Silver variant of the 1H mace. This will be added retroactively to characters who have purchased the armament.
• Pandaria Challenge Dungeon sets have been added to Appearances.
• The Appearance Collection now includes Holiday cosmetic items, which can be transmogged during the holiday.

[FichtenMoped 11]

Damn shame there is no LFR Timewalking (yet) but we'll see if they add it

[Tosen 0]

Not sure what to think of the Destro changes,  I hope it's a buff to ST but it doesn't look like it

[Yridaa 490]

1 hour ago, FichtenMoped said:

Damn shame there is no LFR Timewalking (yet) but we'll see if they add it

That could really complicate things because gear rewards in Timewalking get scaled up (Currently to 855+). This means that trinkets that were BiS back in the day might be a lot better when scaled up compared to even 945 Tomb of Sargeras trinkets. The most prominent that comes to my mind are the trinkets that massively (Over 60%) reduced powerful cooldowns in Siege of Orgrimmar.

This would mean they'd have to nerf the trinkets into oblivion, and then no one does LFR Timewalking anymore because the rewards are bad.

 

The reason why Black Temple would work is because the devs don't need to worry about OP trinkets. First of all they already need an overhaul because of how we evolved our stats. Armor Penetration, MP5S, Spell Damage, Hit Rating, and the list goes on. All of these trinkets need to be replaced anyway.

 

Now, doing a proper LFR Timewalking like how we do with dungeons, 1 xpac at a time, would take such considerable effort, one might wonder if it's not better to just redesign the entire raid and just use the raids as a map, and slap an "end-game raid tier" sticker on it. But then it'd just be a downgrade to a proper new raid and one loses sight of what the point was in the first place.

 

In WoD we had Molten Core "revisit" and a lot of people with rose tinted glasses were absolutely ecstatic about it. During their first visit they realized it was not great and the rewards were bad compared to the time investment. I'm not saying all old raids would be like this, but the moral of the story is that things may seem a lot more exciting than it ends up being, and in the end, we all go back to current raid tiers instead.

[Maruken 31]

16 minutes ago, Yridaa said:

This would mean they'd have to nerf the trinkets into oblivion, and then no one does LFR Timewalking anymore because the rewards are bad.

No one does Timewalking dungeons for gear. Don't see how raids will be any different.

[Yridaa 490]

8 hours ago, Maruken said:

No one does Timewalking dungeons for gear. Don't see how raids will be any different.

And then one would wonder why Blizzard would invest such a considerable amount of time to make LFR Timewalking a thing.

[demonardvark 556]

Overall pleased with the DK changes. Blood getting a much needed damage buff. Unholy will be interesting to play with. Certainly the necrosis rotation will be messed with but death coil doing damage will be a refreshing change. Certainly seems like unholy is going to remain stack mastery for leet deeps. 

BT time walking. yesssssssssssss

[CrimsonVow 1]

15 hours ago, Stan said:

Retribution

• Blessing of the Ashbringer now grants 4% strength (was 2000 strength).

I honestly can't see how this nerf is fair. If they did want scaling, then 4% is a very sad number. In order to get back the 2000 strength buff you are losing, you'd need to be at 50k Strength to break even from this. Even just 5%  would be better so as to make sure that this doesn't make early leveling paladins too strong.

Edited April 14, 2017 by CrimsonVow

[Calysia 220]

14 hours ago, Yridaa said:

In WoD we had Molten Core "revisit" and a lot of people with rose tinted glasses were absolutely ecstatic about it. During their first visit they realized it was not great and the rewards were bad compared to the time investment. I'm not saying all old raids would be like this, but the moral of the story is that things may seem a lot more exciting than it ends up being, and in the end, we all go back to current raid tiers instead.

Yeah...I could only stomach one run of that. Not fun at all.

[Blitzfury 0]

lol @ the shaman changes:( where are our enha. love...

[Stan 5,022]

2 hours ago, Blitzfury said:

lol @ the shaman changes:( where are our enha. love...

Upcoming Enhancement Shaman changes are discussed here.

[Adruin 0]

On 4/13/2017 at 3:23 PM, Stan said:

 

• • Windwalker
    • Damage of most abilities increased by 5.5%.
    • Fists of Furys range increased to 8 yards (was 5) and damage reduced by 20%.

But does that justify? :thinking: Is the other skills supposed to make up for the 20%? Not sure why they need any decrease when they are just mediocre. xd

[Yaozuh 0]

On 16/04/2017 at 9:41 AM, Adruin said:

On 16/04/2017 at 9:41 AM, Adruin said:

But does that justify? :thinking: Is the other skills supposed to make up for the 20%? Not sure why they need any decrease when they are just mediocre. xd

I made the math based on a log of my monk on Krosus HC wich i get 90% of my ilvl potencial
i uses the total values of each skill im the end of the fight the number i got where:
 FoF  -6,092M
RSK  +1,217M
ESF  +1,561M
SotW +0,617M
BoK  +0,509M
ToD  +0,413M
WDP  +0,355M
TP   +0,244M
CW   +0,177M
So basically we lost -6,092M and got +5,06M from all other skills together... 

[Yridaa 490]

On 4/19/2017 at 8:01 AM, Yaozuh said:

 

Does that include the same amount of uptime on the boss? i.e. you had to run away just as often, boss died at ~the same time, CD's lined up identically etc?

[Apissedoffshaman 0]

wow... just wow. big changes across almost all classes, some getting buffs that really dont need it, and lack luster nerfs where big nerfs are needed... but do you guys do crap with enhancement and ele shaman??? of course not. are you kidding me?? you will outright change abilities on some classes, and straight remove one that arent needed, but enhance/ ele get nothing? i can write pages on how screwed up our talent pages are, and how horribly unbalanced we are right now. but blizz doesnt care apparently hahah im rerolling ha im done with this joke of a class that blizz refuses to address.  

[Valks 2,373]

On 4/21/2017 at 0:11 AM, Apissedoffshaman said:

hahah im rerolling ha im done with this joke of a class that blizz refuses to address.  

Come to the world of Druids and Priests - we're cool :D

[Flexo 0]

its all spaghetti for me :(  i have a resto/enhancement shaman and i feel like i trowed my life away in legion ...... maybe its time 2 start re rolling into something new..... for now i do want a class that inst that bad so i hope you guys can give me input from those ptr knowledge.

 

cheers

[Lukian 0]

Well, looks like Blizz is trying to ground AOTHG for Havoc DH, even with the proc buff on Demon blades, i mean yeah, DB gets a 100% proc chance, for what??? 6 to 12 fury??? and another 1 to 3 fury from the nerfed ring? kind of makes it useless... so yeah.... i think i'll bag that soon to be useless ring and hunt for a better one... nice job screwing up the class Blizz, no wonder you are loosing players...

[MechanixNA 0]

I had hoped for Feral Druid to get a damage buff or an energy buff.

[Jorenthar 1]

I really really really think I'm going to enjoy the massive update that shadow priests recieved this patch. Thanks Blizzard!

 

P.S Here's a little image to show my appreciation to Blizzard:

Spoiler

 

[Valks 2,373]

On 6/10/2017 at 8:33 PM, MechanixNA said:

I had hoped for Feral Druid to get a damage buff or an energy buff.

I feel like Feral has been so overcomplicated for the results you get in Legion - I do wonder if just a simple buff is the right answer though. Maybe a smoothing of the rotation with some form of refresh mechanic in the spec?

[Scarnizt 0]

Just came here to tell that I'm very happy with my Sub Rogue thank you very much.

FUCK YES! BUFF MY ROGUE!!