Patch 10.2 PTR Development Notes for Oct 11th - Additional Class Adjustments & Design Changes

Hey gamers! It's time for another exciting update from Blizzard on the highly anticipated Dragonflight Patch 10.2: Guardians of the Dream. This week, the PTR development notes have been released with a bunch of new tuning and design changes for most classes. Let's dive in and see what's in store for us!

DEMON HUNTER

• Havoc

• Tactical Retreat and Unbound Chaos have swapped talent locations.
• Burning Hatred now generates an additional 40 Fury (was 50).
• Inner Demon now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
• Inertia damage bonus reduced to 18% (was 20%).
• Chaotic Disposition chaos damage duplicated reduced to 17% (was 21%).

• Vengeance

• Darkglare Boon and Sigil of Misery have swapped talent locations.
• Fel Devastation cooldown reduced to 40 seconds (was 1 minute).
• Fiery Brand now deals damage every 1 second (was 2 seconds), dealing the same total damage over its duration.
• Burning Alive now causes Fiery Brand to spread every 1 second (was 2 seconds).

DRUID

• Balance

The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (2) Set Bonus now increases the damage of Wrath and Starfire by 100% (was 60%). The (4) Set Bonus now increases your current Eclipse’s Arcane or Nature damage bonus by an additional 2% (was 3%), up to 10% (was 15%).

EVOKER

• Devastation

• All spell and ability damage increased by 3%.
• Disintegrate damage increased by 15%.

MONK

• Mistweaver

• Bounce Back now reduces damage by 20/40% (was 10/20%) and triggers when you receive 15% of your maximum health in damage (was 20%). Does not apply in PvP combat.
• Clouded Focus now stacks up to 2 times (was 3) and no longer increases the healing of Vivify before its first application.
• Vivify and Invigorating Mist healing increased by 12%.
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus now stores 20% of all healing done (was 15%).

• Windwalker

Developers’ note: We liked the positive effect that Fangs of the Vermillion Forge had on Windwalker single target damage, and are transferring some of that power from the class set into the base specialization as players adventure into Amirdrassil and replace their existing gear. The net effect of these changes is an overall increase in character power. Additionally, we heard player concerns that the effort required to play Whirling Dragon Punch wasn’t worth the resulting increase in power. We agree, and have increased the damage it deals as a result. We have also added additional damage to the Amirdrassil (4) set as the cooldown reduction, while fun, was not entirely meeting our goals for additional power granted by the bonus.

• Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 10%.
• Fists of Fury damage increased by 5% and additional damage to primary target increased by 10%.
• Whirling Dragon Punch damage increased by 10%.
• The Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible (2) Set Bonus now has a reduced Rising Sun Kick bonus damage to 5% (was 10%).
• The Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible (4) Set Bonus now has a reduced Fists of Fury primary target damage to 20% (was 30%).
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus now increases the damage of Fists of Fury, Rising Sun Kick, Strike of the Windlord, and Whirling Dragon Punch by 4%.

PRIEST

• Shadow

The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (2) Set Bonus now triggers additional Shadow Word: Deaths at 15% effectiveness (was 20%). The (4) Set Bonus now increases the damage of Shadow Crash by 50% per stack (was 100%) and highlights Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Crash at 12 stacks (was 10).

ROGUE

• Assassination

• Leeching Poison now grants 10% Leech (was 5%). Does not apply in PvP combat.
• Crimson Tempest damage reduced by 5%.
• Blindside now causes Ambush to replace Mutilate when the effect is triggered.
• Sanguine Blades energy consumed per tick reduced to 2 (was 3) and damage duplicated increased to 25% (was 20%).
• Sudden Demise now has a 10-second delay after triggering before being able to trigger again on the same target.
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus now increases Envenomous Explosion’s damage by 150% if it deals damage to a single target.

• Outlaw

• Sinister Strike damage increased by 10%.
• Audacity now causes Ambush to replace Sinister Strike when the effect is triggered.
• Killing Spree damage increased by 25%.

• Subtlety

• Eviscerate damage increased by 8%.
• Exhilarating Execution now causes finishing moves to heal for 5% of damage done (was 3%).
• Shadowed Finishers finisher shadow damage value increased to 30% (was 25%).
• Shuriken Tornado Shuriken Storms triggered by Shuriken Tornado no longer generate bonus combo points from Shadow Blades.

SHAMAN

• Elemental

• Fixed an issue where Splintered Elements was incorrectly granting you 4% extra Haste than intended when activating against a single target.
• Elemental Blast can now refresh and extend the duration of the Haste, Critical Strike, and Mastery effects to up to 130% of the base 10-second duration, but will still prefer to apply a buff that you don’t already have.
• Fixed an issue where Further Beyond would not properly extend Ascendance to the maximum duration if the extension amount would have put it beyond the maximum extension amount.
• Fixed an issue where Further Beyond didn’t properly extend extra Ascendance activations from Deeply Rooted Elements if you were already under the effects of Ascendance from Deeply Rooted Elements.
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus has been fixed to only activate when you have the 4-set equipped.
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus will now properly trigger the Splintered Elements talent when subsequent Lava Bursts are cast.
• The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus will now ensure Lava Bursts benefitting from Molten Charge deal the expected damage.

• Enhancement

• Fixed an issue where Splintered Elements was incorrectly granting you 4% extra Haste than intended when activating against a single target.

• Restoration

The Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope (4) Set Bonus now increases the healing of Riptide by 20% (was 15%).

WARLOCK

• Affliction

The Soul-Eater’s Gluttony talent has been redesigned. The Soul Rot cooldown is now reduced by 15/30 seconds.

A bug that affected the damage increase of Seed of Corruption to the main target caused by the Umbrafire Kindling talent has been fixed.

• Demonology

• Doom Brand is now more consistent with summoning a Doomfiend.
• Doom Brand now has a chance to summon a Doomfiend when dispelled, rather than only when detonated.
• Doom Brand is now only applied when consuming a Demonic Core.
• Immutable Hatred should no longer be lost if your Felguard is out of range. Instead, he will use it as soon as he is within range.
• A bug that affected the functionality of Immutable Hatred has been fixed.

• Destruction

A bug that caused Dimensional Cinders to benefit twice from Critical Strikes has been fixed.

WARRIOR

• Fury

Developers’ note: The previous design of Reckless Abandon was influencing builds and rotations too heavily, encouraging players to focus entirely on either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow at the expense of the other. We want Fury Warriors to use both abilities regularly, so we are changing the design slightly so it only affects your rotation choice immediately after using Rampage to open up more build options. These changes will be applied to the 10.2 PTR via hotfix over the course of the week.

• Reckless Abandon now only empowers your next 1 Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (was 2).
• Reckless Abandon's Bloodbath and Crushing Blow bonus damage has been doubled.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• ROGUE

Outlaw

The increased damage of Killing Spree in PvP combat has been reverted back to its original state.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

A couple of quality of life improvements have been made to the user interface:

• The Quest pane now offers different background parchment colors for improved readability.
• A celebratory popup will now appear when you unlock a Great Vault slot or upgrade the reward of a slot.
• In the Reputation pane, Major Factions are now grouped together at the top of the list for easier navigation.

That's it for today! Don't forget to check out our pre-order offers on Amirdrassil raid that will launch soon and we'll see you in the next one!