Chapter 2 Pre-Patch Updates

This article will go over the changes going live today with the Pre-Patch, in addition to updates that were not featured in the full overview. The majority of the remaining updates will go live on Friday May 3rd.

New: Nameplates Overhaul

Today's updates introduce new default Nameplates along with several quality of life improvements for all nameplates.

To opt-out of the new nameplates, navigate through:

Esc -> Interface -> NamePlates -> Enable Use Classic NamePlates

This option will also help resolve any AddOn conflicts that might not have been caught initially. You will be prompted upon first login to select between Ascension NamePlates or your preferred AddOn's NamePlates.

Configuring Nameplates:

• You can customize the appearance of the new default nameplates via:
• Esc -> Interface -> NamePlates -> Configure NamePlates

Other New Features:

A new option has been added:

• Esc -> Interface -> NamePlates -> Smooth Stacking NamePlates. (Note: Overlapping nameplates must be enabled.)
• This feature enhances the stacking of multiple nameplates on screen, creating a smoother visual effect. 
• A demonstration video below showcases this feature. 
• While compatible with any nameplate addon, it may affect fps significantly in certain situations.

New: Quick Keybinding

Today’s update also releases Quick Keybinding, alongside a reorganized Escape Menu with this update.

• You can find this in Esc -> Quick Keybinding  or /qb.

• AddOns such as Bartender4 and ElvUI will retain their own quick keybinding systems. 
• This is to get everyone access to an easier way to bind keys. 

If you have an addon that has issues with the new escape menu, please DM andrew6180 on discord, and he can get it fixed and added to the launcher. 

• ElvUI and MoveAnything from the launcher have already been updated.

New: Modern Raid Frames

Modern Raid / Party Frames also release with this update.

You can enable these for party in: 

Esc -> Interface -> Raid Profiles -> Use Raid-Style Party Frames

At this time there is no way to opt out of the frames entirely, although you may just hide them. AddOns such as ElvUI and VuhDo have already been updated to disable these as well. Please DM andrew on discord if you have any issues with these though! 

These also add a convenient way to place your vanity world raid markers (if you own them!)

Prestige Rewards

Chapter 2 builds on previous Prestige Rewards to make prestiging feel great for Heroes who do it.

First, all prestige daily quests now reward 9,999 Marks of Ascension upon completion, up from 2500.

Second, the experience bonus granted by Daily Prestige Buffs increases from 3% to 10% bonus exp. This stacks with other Experience Gains like Heirlooms and Potions.

Buffed and New Heirlooms

• Heirlooms have received a stat increase to be more competitive with level scaled gear.
• New Heirlooms now exist so that you can fully equip an Heirloom in each item slot! These don’t offer bonus exp, but are a big QoL change so that you don’t have to swap gear sets while Prestiging anymore.
• These Heirlooms do not have the experience bonus and are slightly cheaper than the versions with an EXP Bonus. 

You can grab them like normal for Marks of Ascension or Prestige Tokens, and they ensure you can focus on your runs, rather than having to micromanage your gear.

Expanded Skill Card Slots

In Chapter 2 you have 2 extra Ability and 2 extra Talent Card Slots for a total of 4 extra Skill Cards. This gives you more agency over the core of your build, and the direction of your Wildcard journey.

Skill Cards Usable at Any Level

Chapter 2 introduces a brand new way to use Skill Cards by removing the lvl. 10 and under requirement.

• You can now slot Skill Cards at any level. As long as the slot is empty, it doesn’t matter if you’re level 2, level 52, or level 60 you can slot any Skill Card you find. This means you can slot them while leveling, or you can use those two new slots you got at end-game without prestiging
• YOU CAN USE SKILL CARDS AT LEVEL 60.
• You can remove it as long as you haven’t rolled it yet in case you make a mistake or change your mind!

This introduces a few big new ways to play: 

First, it means that if you’re a new Hero who hasn’t got a lot of cards yet, you can use the cards you find at any point in your adventure. 

If you discover something that’s useful to your current build, you can slot it immediately instead of having to wait and prestige. This also helps Heroes who may have been working on a build from the start of the season that didn’t have any Skill cards. Once this change drops, you can immediately slot in useful cards!

Second, this change makes sure that if you’ve got some but not all of the Skill Cards you need for a build, you’re not punished for leaving them empty. You can aim for a build, slot the cards you do have, and add more once you find them to continue improving your build.

Third, it means that when Chapter 2 hits and you get those 4 extra Skill Card Slots, you can throw relevant Cards right into any of your current builds without having to prestige.

The change also introduces a new way to use Skill Cards in Wildcard: rather than slotting at the beginning of your adventure, you can Prestige a new build, see what you get, improve it a bit, and then take it to the next level by slotting cards relevant to what you end up getting.

Keep in mind that this change doesn’t let you UNSELECT cards: you can still only slot your 6 total Ability and 8 total Talent Card slots. But now you have flexibility in when you slot them, opening up more ways to play.

Sealed Card Pack Improvements

With extra Skill Card Slots, getting the cards you want in your collection becomes a lot more meaningful. To help you find what you need, Chapter 2 increases your chance to see undiscovered cards from Sealed Packs. 

With Chapter 2’s launch, Sealed Card Packs you find have a higher chance to reveal cards you don’t already have. You’ll see more new cards, and less duplicates.

One potential path for Wildcard was to add more stuff like Card Packs and Scrolls of Fortune as rewards so you got more total ways to improve your Hero. However, the consequence of that was a world where you had to stand around and open packs/reroll skills for hours. Rather than doing that, future Wildcard updates will prioritize making EACH Roll or Card Pack you open BETTER, rather than just giving MORE. This way, you’ll need less total rerolls and Card Packs to get a good feeling build, and you won’t have to stand around and reroll as much.

Enhanced Card Reveal

Opening 1000 packs by clicking on each individual card takes too long. Enhanced Card Reveal lets you open your entire stack of card packs at once without revealing duplicate cards. Instead, only cards that are NEW for you OR increase your Talent Card Upgrade Progress appear on-screen to flip. 

This keeps the excitement of finding something new, while making it easy and automatic to recycle duplicate cards and get Darkmoon Tickets. After opening your stacks, a statistics page will appear to give you information about the cards you unlocked. It’s the best of both worlds, guaranteeing that opening Sealed Packs is always exciting, while streamlining recycling duplicates.

You should probably at least watch 10:14 of the video lol

Extra Multispec Scrolls from Case of Fortune

During Chapter 1 Cases of Fortune were upgraded to have a chance to award a scroll to each of your specializations: even ones you haven’t unlocked yet.

One of the goals of Wildcard Mode is to make sure you can improve your build just by playing. Whether you love dungeons, raids, the manastorm, battlegrounds, or even high-risk PvP, you can play how you want and get Cases of Fortune to re-roll stuff you don’t want into stuff you do want. 

Chapter 2 makes this even better by giving Cases of Fortune a chance to award a Multispec Scroll. Multispec Scrolls give a scroll to EACH of your specializations–even ones you don’t have unlocked. This adds a ton of value to cases, makes each case you get better, and gives you more chances to improve more builds. It’s also a step in the direction of giving you more incentive to have, improve, and play multiple builds at once.

Abilities, Talents and Balance Updates

Today’s update brings the new abilities, talents, and balance changes that were shown last week. You can read those here:

https://ascension.gg/news/chapter-2-skillcards-balance-and-new-abilities-and-talents/457

New: Looking into One-Time Scroll Refund for Nerfs

Balance updates on Elune need to happen more frequently, this creates a problem where balance updates that most agree need to happen when there is so much investment into a build.

There is work being done to look into something where you get a portion of scrolls refunded one-time if you reset a build that had abilities or talents that were nerfed. There is not enough time to get this done today**but it is being looked into**, **Please do not take it as a promise this is coming,

There will be an post on this as soon as we know:

• This is not guaranteed, it is being looked into
• It would be limited or One-Time
• It would be for portion of scrolls used
• It would only be available for those with nerfed abilities or talents.

That being said:

- Do not prestige builds affected by nerfs until there is confirmation about whether or not this can be done. If this is done then you will not be able to utilize a system like this if it was introduced.

Manastorm Updates

• Level updates are live now.
• Chapter 2 End-Game Manastorms are disabled and will be released on Friday May 3rd

New: Manastorm Level Squish

There were a LOT of Manastorm levels. It took way too long to crawl through them and it resulted in the difficulty curve not being meaningful from one level to the next. Chapter 2 cuts the levels more than in half, making each level more meaningful and reducing the time to catch-up. Keep in mind, Chapter 2 End-game Manastorms go live Friday.

New: Manastorm Reset and First-Time Completion Bonuses

With this Chapter the community has expressed the desire for a reset to open up the access to first completion rewards that are added and to give an even start with all of the new changes. You will be able to earn First-Time completion bonuses that have additionally been buffed from all formats independently. Solo, Duo, Trio

Expanded First Completion Bonuses

Finally, First Completion Bonuses are an extra reward you receive for completing a Manastorm Level for the first time. With Chapter 2, you can get first completion bonuses more than once for doing runs with every group size:

• Solo
• Duo
• Trio
• Group

This encourages you to try the manastorm with tons of different groups and in a variety of different ways, reaping rewards for each group size you do. Grab rewards, improve your hero, and push deeper into the Manastorm.

New: Manastorm Loadouts

This new feature is coming that will allow slotting 4 specific manastorm items. This change will allow the creation of much stronger Manastorm items for you to unlock and Manastorm upgrades too, adding strategy and depth to your approach for the Manastorm.

This feature is not fully finished and will be fully pushed; you can expect balance changes to the Manastorm potions with the rollout of Chapter 2 End-game Manastorms on Friday May 3rd and new items in the following weeks.

Here is an example of a new item coming with Manastorm loadouts

New Item: Manastorm Mobility Mixture

This new potion will allow you to cast spells while moving for a short duration in the Manastorm. This is upgradable and can sotted into your loadouts. This item also ranks up!

Manastorm Improvements

With Chapter 2, big changes come to the Manastorm: 

• Affixes get a redesign to make them more strategic, dynamic, and fun
• You get MORE treasure at deeper Manastorm levels, which makes it exciting and rewarding to push into more difficult Storms
• Brand new content comes to the Storm to keep it fresh and engaging

Improved Manastorm Rewards

In Chapter 2, you’ll get more rewards at higher Manastorm levels: loot boxes will have better loot, you’ll get more bolts to trade for cosmetic and potion rewards, and of course completing higher levels will award more Scrolls of Fortune. The goal of these changes is to make it rewarding to push to deeper levels of the storm so you don’t feel like you’re forced to run Manastorm 1-50 over and over again.

New: Manastorm Group Reward Multiplier

One issue in the Manastorm is adding more players often slowed you down a bit, and this resulted in a lower rate of rewards, which overall discouraged you from playing with others. This new group reward multiplier increases all rewards when depending on your player count. This multiplier goes up up to 5 people. 

This is increased further by the specific map reward multiplier.

Manastorm Reward Multiplier

Longer Manastorm maps–maps that are physically bigger, or have more enemies, or otherwise take more time to complete–now have a reward multiplier! This ensures that if you land on a map that takes a bit more time to complete, you’re getting more rewards for it. Now you can enjoy any Manastorm map you land on knowing that no matter what you hit or how long it takes, you’ll be getting great loot.

Additionally, this feature will be coming to Mythic+ as well!

New: Leveling and End-game Progression Split

In this update leveling and End-game manastorm progression are now split after level 100. 

End-game manastorms will now include challenging raid encounters and the level progression being shared would allow one to skip all of the challenging encounters. 

If you go past level 100 while leveling and hit 60, you will be put in your latest unlocked level at or after 100 that you have unlocked for end-game progression.

Affix Overhaul

On -Death Affix Changes

On-Death Affixes now affect both heroes AND creatures: allies and enemies. With Chapter 2, affixes like Vortex, Bonestorm, etc. will be just as harmful to creatures as they are to you. This transforms affixes into forces of nature that you can use to your advantage!

Additionally, new affixes like Rune of Power and Aethyric Winds also follow this paradigm of affecting all creatures. 

This change transforms affixes into something that rewards you for playing strategically. It puts more control to navigate Manastorms in your hands, and provides more choice to how you move through Storms. Use affixes to your advantage to push deeper into the storm.

Affix Balance

It was just too crazy. There was too much on the screen. It tanked FPS, it wasn’t really all that avoidable. Here are the changes

• Reduced Affix Density has been decreased DRAMATICALLY (by like 90% in levels after 150~).
• Affix Ranks the smaller amount of remaining affixes will matter more as affixes now rank up and increase in difficulty deeper into the manastorm.

New Affix Indicators

Affixes now have indicators so that it’s a lot more clear where they will affect you. You can better predict when you’re out of danger, or when you need to move.

This makes it clear where strong affixes like Vortex, Bonestorm, and Meteor effects will harm you, allowing you to better maneuver in Manastorms to make sure enemies suffer their effects and you don’t!

Currently, these indicators are only available for affixes in the Manastorm. However, the intention moving forward is to add these to many PvE effects to better indicate when and where you’re in danger. Clarity is key!

That Vortex is about to pull these creatures in and shred them up. (See picture above of 9999 damage)

Now you can tell exactly where that meteor is going to land!

New Passive Affixes

New passive affixes offer boosts to individual creatures that enhance their original design.

One fun aspects of the Manastorm is the crazy creature combinations: you might have to fight a Gurubashi Berserker, a Leper Gnome, and a Scholomance Necromancer all at the same time–something you’d never have to tackle normally. Part of the fun is having to deal with those individual creatures, their mechanics, and how different the fight becomes when they’re together. Previously, some affixes made it so you felt like you were fighting the affix, not the creature. That took away some of the magic of confronting these wacky combinations of foes.

With new passive affixes, you’ll feel like you’re fighting an enhanced version of the creature. Passive affixes like Evasive, Regenerative, Hasty, or Rampaging empower the creatures as they are, rather than changing the creature into something different. This makes sure you feel like you’re still fighting that specific creature–dealing with its strengths, weaknesses, and personal mechanics–but in a new way.

Here’s some examples of passive affixes:

• Regenerative
  • Regenerates % hp on a timer
• Hasty
  • Increased haste
• Rampaging
  • Increased damage increase every second in combat stacking
• Evasive
  • % bonus chance to dodge 
• Stalwart
  • Reduces damage taken of creatures around them until they’re slain
• Formidable
  • Health increased

Boss Affixes

BOSSES NOW HAVE AFFIXES in the Manastorm, creating one more way to play and strategize both solo and with friends.

Affixes Now Also Unlock at Specific Levels

Affixes now also spawn on these specific checkpoint levels your first time, so you can learn how they work and overcome them.

The Manastorm has a big difference from typical PvE content: when you die, you’re booted out. This means if you encountered a mechanic you’re unfamiliar with and it kills you, you didn’t get to try again and overcome it. 

Now, Affixes like Vortex, Rune of Power, Bonestorm, and Aethyric Winds  now appear at specific Manastorm levels. Just like the new maps and creatures, you’ll have to beat the level to progress. If you die and get booted out, you can jump right back in and try again on that specific level. 

This makes it so you can see a new affix, engage with it, probably die to it, and jump right back in to challenge it again until you beat it. Once you do, that affix will be added to your pool–and you’ll know how to deal with it when you encounter it again.

These affixes will come in conjunction with the new maps and creatures in a way that is thematic: for example, you’ll encounter the Vortex affix at a windy shipwreck in the Temple of Eternity. This map always spawns at Manastorm Level 16, so you can confront it, master Vortex, and then add the map, creatures, and affix to your pool.

Not only does this allow the Manastorm to expand and get bigger as you progress, but it also helps you learn and master affixes. You can progress through the storm more prepared than ever.

New Manastorm Encounters

Chapter 2 adds new custom bosses, new storms in existing dungeons, and even entirely new maps to the Manastorm. Some of these new places are completely custom, with custom monster layouts and boss mechanics to challenge you solo or with friends. As you face off against these new threats, you’ll find these new challenges are just one more way of keeping the Manastorm fresh and exciting. You can expect the Manastorm to constantly expand and get bigger with new stuff Ascension puts out.

Added Manastorm Encounters

Previously, many bosses that were in the game weren’t in the Manastorm because of complicated or unique issues (i.e. locked behind other bosses). With Chapter 2, many of these have been resolved and introduced to the Manastorm! You can now look forward to bosses like:

 

• Earthcaller Halmgar
• Fineous Darkvire
• Warder S’tigiss
• Chief Urkoz Sandscalp
• Ironaya
• Lord Hel’nurath
• The Seven in Blackrock Depths
• Brightwing
• Immol’thar
• Ragglesnout
• and bosses in Sunken Temple!

Chaotic Link

Bosses in the Manastorm are now linked to creatures in the dungeon: bosses have an aura that makes them stronger. As you kill creatures, the aura gets weaker. Kill around half the creatures in the Manastorm, and the aura disappears–making the boss weaker. If you skip the trash, the aura stays and the boss is stronger. You get to choose how you tackle the storm, and if you choose to kill creatures…

Treasure Keeper + Klepto the Cardnapper

Killing creatures in the Manastorm now has a chance to spawn new greedy-demon type monsters.

The Treasure Keeper has a chance to spawn every time you kill trash mobs in the Manastorm. If you find him, you can slay him for additional gear chests AND additional Cases of Fortune. This little guy makes it worth it to slay monsters in the storm, because you might just get your hands on bonus loot. The more creatures you kill and the higher the level, the higher chance the Treasure Keeper will spawn. Additionally, the deeper you go into the manastorm the better the Treasure Keeper’s loot becomes. Every Manastorm Bracket has its own Treasure keeper with its own drops, meaning slaying all those interesting manastorm packs suddenly becomes a lot more valuable. It’s also one more thing to encourage you to dive into deeper levels of the Manastorm.

Klepto the Cardnapper is a monster that has a chance to spawn at random in each Manastorm you visit. If you find him, you can take him down to get multiple Sealed Card Packs, as well as additional Cases of Fortune.

These two creatures make it worth killing creatures in the Manastorm, and is one more way to make sure you get more loot from going deeper.

New Tamable Treants

You can now finally tame the hardest wood in Azeroth.

Performance Improvements

Finally, Chapter 2 brings a few performance improvements to the game.

First off, you can now specifically tweak the graphics settings for RAIDS: by going into your video panel, you can set options for how your game looks while raiding, which can increase performance. 

Second, you can now adjust your cloud settings–no, not data uploads, the literal clouds in the game–to increase your FPS. Toggling on ‘dynamic clouds’ will make your FPS better. We don’t know why, we’re not cloud scientists. But it does.

New Loading Screens

Loading Screens on Ascension now have new art! This isn’t big, but it’s part of a commitment to making even the small things better to bring polish to Ascension and improving your experience and immersion.

aDDITIONAL aBILITY AND TALENT UPDATES

These changes are all coming to Area 52 and Elune

• Fixed a bug where the Regrowth instant heal was affected by Flourish.
• Druid shapeshifts no longer removes slows/roots when shifting out. Meaning slows and roots will only be removed when entering a shapeshift form.
• These Hasty Mystic Enchants are no longer available: Intimidating Shout, Pummel, Frost Nova, Shield Bash, Earthbind Totem, Freezing Trap, Frost Trap, Maim, Typhoon, Shockwave, Psychic Horror, Kidney Shot.
• Shockwave now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Thunderstruck no longer reduces the cooldown of Shockwave.
• Capacitor Totem now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Improved Wind Totems no longer reduces the cooldown of Capacitor Totem.
• Blinding Light now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed 40. (Cleric’s Light cooldown also reduced by 10 sec.)
• Sanctified Light no longer reduces the cooldown of Blinding Light.
• Sanctified Light now has a new Capstone: Capstone Bonus: After using Blinding Light your next Holy Light, Flash of Light, Holy Shock or Light of Dawn has a 100% increased critical effect chance.
• Bash 40 from 60. Brutal impact removed
• Increased the damage of the Brutal Impact Capstone by 20%.
• Improved Howl of Terror no longer reduces the cooldown of Howl of Terror.
• Cyclone now lasts for 5 sec, changed from 4.
• Balance of Power no longer increases the duration of Cyclone.
• Gouge now has a 12 sec cooldown, changed from 15.
• Improved Gouge no longer reduces the cooldown of Gouge.
• Hypnosis now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 25.
• T.N.T no longer reduces the cooldown of Scatter Shot.
• Trap Mastery no longer increases the duration of Freezing Trap (this part didn’t work in PvP.)
• Trap Mastery has a new Capstone: The duration of Freezing Trap is doubled on targets affected by your Scatter Shot.
• Intimidation now has a 45 sec cooldown, changed from 90.
• Invigoration no longer reduces the cooldown of Intimidation.
• Invigoration has a new Capstone: Using Intimidation heals your pet for 20% of its health.
• Elusiveness no longer reduces the cooldown and increases the duration of Blind.
• Blind now has a 90 sec cooldown, changed from 120. Now has a 8 sec duration, changed from 6.
• Kidney Shot now has a 25 sec cooldown, changed from 35.
• Improved Kidney Shot no longer reduces the cooldown of Kidney Shot. It now increases damage taken by the target while Kidney Shot is active by 4/8%, changed from 2/4%.
• Improved Hammer of Justice no longer reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice.
• Hammer of Justice now has a 40 sec cooldown, changed from 50. (This also includes Light of Justice and Crusader’s Hammer.)
• Frost Nova now lasts for 6 sec, changed from 4.
• Permafrost no longer increases the duration of Frost Nova.
• Ring of Frost now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Wyvern Sting now has a 35 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Petrification Totem now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 35.
• Repentance now has a 35 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Dragon’s Breath now has a 35 sec cooldown, changed from 30.
• Typhoon now has a 20 sec cooldown, changed from 30 sec.
• Gale Winds no longer reduces the cooldown of Typhoon.
• Typhoon now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 35 sec.
• Impact Capstone has been changed. Meteor now has a 100% chance to trigger the Impact buff, changed from Meteor being able to trigger the stun from Impact when the buff was active.
• Silencing Shot now always silences for 2 seconds. (Non-player spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec.)
• Survival Tactics no longer reduces the cooldown of Silencing Shot.
• Psychic Scream now has a 40 sec cooldown, changed from 45 sec.
• Improved Psychic Scream now increases the duration of Psychic Scream by 1 / 2 sec.
• Improved Shadowform no longer increases the duration of Psychic Scream.
• Cheap Shot now lasts for 3.5 sec, changed from 2 sec.
• Master of Subtlety no longer increases the duration of Cheap Shot.
• Lengthy Cheap Shot is no longer available.
• Pounce now lasts for 3.5 sec, changed from 2.5 sec.
• Shredding Attacks no longer increases the duration of Pounce.
• Sundering now has a 25 sec cooldown, changed from 35.
• Sundering now doesn’t break from any Fire damage over time effect.
• Enhanced Weapon Mastery no longer reduces the cooldown of Sundering.
• Repentance now has a 30 sec cooldown, changed from 40.
• Crusade no longer reduces the cooldown for Repentance.
• Added a capstone for Crusade: Repentance does not break from Righteous Vengeance or Seal of Vengeance.

Key Things Coming Friday May 3rd:

This Prepatch is only a small portion of the updates for chapter 2, but for your planning here are some key updates that are planned for Friday.

• Synergy Roll Improvements
• Talent Upgrade Chance Increase
• End-Game Manastorm Progression