The 12.1.5 development notes for the week are here and we have a lot of class tuning! Devourer gets the majority of the changes, with talents being moved around as well. There’s also a new sound option to select at how much player health a looping warning will be played.
Hello! The 12.1.5 PTR has been updated with the following changes:
NEW SINGLE-BOSS RAID: THE UNBINDING OF KITH’IX
Kith’ix raid testing starts September 16. Check out the raid testing schedule for more details: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/the-unbinding-of-kithix-raid-testing-schedule/2346119
CLASSES
- DEMON HUNTER
- Devourer
- Soulforged Blades now increases the critical strike chance of Hungering Slash and Voidblade by 18% (was 15%).
- Voidpurge now reduces the cooldown of Void Ray during Void Metamorphosis by 2.5 seconds (was 2 seconds).
- Developers’ notes: In addition to the Void-Scarred changes, we are shuffling some talents around to make it a little easier for builds to access core functional effects. The final gate was very dense and two of its talents are moving to the middle gate. The final gate’s capstone talents also notably included effects that are core building blocks: The Hunt is featured for Void-Scarred builds, and Eradicate is a key component of any build’s AoE damage. Those two talents are moving to more accessible locations in the middle gate of the tree, with other talents moving into their capstone positions.
- Many talents have changed positions.
- Demonic Instinct now connects to the talent one row down and one column to the left.
- Devourer’s Edge now connects to the talent one row down and one column to the right.
- Devourer
- DRUID
- Restoration
- Developers’ notes: The current design of Nature’s Bounty causes some rotational friction. We’re redesigning it to work more synergistically with the rest of the healing kit.
- Nature’s Bounty has been redesigned – Regrowth heals up to 3 allies with Rejuvenation active for 15% of its healing, prioritizing allies with the lowest health.
- Restoration
- EVOKER
- Preservation
- Merithra’s Blessing duration reduced to 30 seconds (was 1 minute).
- Preservation
- MAGE
- Arcane
- Several Arcane spells have been added to the Spell Density system for additional visibility options for non-Mage players.
- Frost
- Fixed an issue where Splitting Ice’s damage modifier would not apply to Frostbolt, causing both Frostbolts to hit for full damage.
- Fixed an issue where casting a Frostfire Bolt and then switching to Spellslinger Hero Specialization would cause Frostbolt to have the Splitting Ice damage multiplier apply to the main target in addition to the secondary target.
- Hero Talents
- Frostfire
- Fixed an issue preventing Frostfire Empowerment’s effects from applying to the second target when Frostfire Bolt hit a second target due to Splitting Ice.
- Frostfire Infusion’s tooltip has been updated, functionality unchanged.
- Spellslinger
- Splinterstorm is now trackable in the Cooldown Manager as a Buff.
- Splinterstorm is no longer removed on start of a raid encounter or Mythic+.
- Frostfire
- Arcane
- PRIEST
- Discipline
- Master the Darkness duration reduced to 30 seconds (was 1 minute).
- Holy
- Developers’ notes: Ultimate Serenity is a powerful tool for Holy priests, specifically in M+. We are moving it up in the talent tree to reduce the amount of investment required for Holy priests to take it so that it enables more choice amongst talents beyond the second gate.
- Holy Celerity and Ultimate Serenity have swapped positions on the specialization tree.
- Discipline
- ROGUE
- Outlaw
- Deft Maneuvers has been updated – No longer increases Blade Flurry’s Energy cost by 30. Instead, it increases Blade Flurry’s Energy cost by 5 per target hit, up to 30.
- Developers’ notes: This change is intended to make it a little less expensive to maintain Blade Flurry when fighting small numbers of additional targets.
- Deft Maneuvers has been updated – No longer increases Blade Flurry’s Energy cost by 30. Instead, it increases Blade Flurry’s Energy cost by 5 per target hit, up to 30.
- Subtlety
- All modifiers to Shadow damage and many Shadow damage abilities have been updated to resolve circumstances where damage bonuses could be applied incorrectly.
- Developers’ notes: Shadow damage bonuses should now consistently apply to any individual Shadow damage abilities (e.g. Secret Technique’s secondary hits, Shadowed Finishers attacks, and Shadow Cloned attacks). Effects that deal Shadow damage based on how much damage attacks dealt (e.g. Shadow Blades’ effect, Goremaw’s Bite mirror damage effect, and Lingering Shadow) should now benefit correctly when the input attacks are physical and no longer double dip when the input attacks are Shadow. The impact these changes will have on overall damage output remains under review.
- All modifiers to Shadow damage and many Shadow damage abilities have been updated to resolve circumstances where damage bonuses could be applied incorrectly.
- Outlaw
- WARRIOR
- Protection
- Developers’ notes: Last week’s changes to Execute were not sufficient to accomplish our goals, and we believe that the scope of changes necessary for those goals are better suited to a major update, so we’re restoring Execute to it’s previous functionality with a damage boost in 12.1.5, and are refocusing on 12.2 and 13.0 for further Protection changes.
Execute no longer consumes additional Rage for additional damage.Execute damage increased by 100%.- Execute damage increased by 30%.
- Protection
USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY
- Added a new setting called “Pulse Your Health” under the Combat Audio Alerts section of the Audio Assist settings. This setting allows the player to specify a health percentage below which a looping sound will be played. The sound gets progressively more aggressive as their health gets lower.
