December Changelog Updates

Heroes!

Big improvements hit the scene this December. We’re showcasing the hottest Changelog Updates made over the past few weeks of to keep you up to date in case you missed them.

Skill Card Changes

Skill Cards are now Spec-Specific.
- This change allows you to roll multiple builds at once without having to needlessly swap out each individual Skill Card
- Allows for the following update:
Hands of Fate and Card Swaps are now directly affected by your Luck Skill Cards even at max level.
- You are now able to see Lucky Cards at Max Level when using Hands of Fate and Card Swaps
The chance to roll Lucky Skill Cards has been greatly buffed
Level 1 Skill Cards are now available in-game
- You can find all the abilities that you previously had to roll at level 1 for as Skill Cards which you can use to further master fate.

With the advent of spec specific Skill Cards, Lucky Skill Cards can now safely affect both your Hands of Fate and Card Swaps. This means that even if you hit 60, you can use Hands of Fate and Card Swaps to continue searching for your Lucky Cards.

Previously, Lucky Skill Cards couldn’t be weighted within Hands of Fate, as this could cause issues if you were to ever have the wrong cards for your current spec. Now, that is no longer an issue.

These changes essentially increase the chance that you’ll find your Lucky Cards, and make Hands of Fate feel more instrumental towards creating your build. Finally, the chance to roll your Lucky Skill Cards has been greatly buffed.

Worldforged Enchantment Updates

Worldforged Enchantment descriptions are now visible, regardless of if you’ve unlocked them
- Discover and explore the Worldforged Enchantments you want
- Grants all Heroes an easy way to access the massive list of Worldforged REs.
Introduced 23 New Worldforged Enchantment Hints
- Every Worldforged Enchantments now has a hint to help you find it
Introduced 15 new Worldforged Enchantment Caches
- Primarily within Dungeons, which proved harder to farm alone
Increased the drop chance of Worldforged Enchantments from creatures

With these changes, Worldforged Enchantments will prove to be easier to find and collect, for all Heroes!

Mythic+ 1-10 on Thrall

The first tier of Mythic+ Vanilla Dungeons heads to Season 8! Get ready to face down higher levels of difficulty for your favorite vanilla dungeons for the chance at Mythic versions of your favorite classic items.

Onyxia Released on Thrall with New Mechanics

Challenge the Black Dragon Onyxia with Thrall’s newest raid! The princess of the Black Flight has brand new mechanics to challenge and overcome, so gather your allies and head into the beast’s lair. Dragons are popular right now, right?

New mechanics improve the classic Onyxia fight
- Giving a ‘deep breath’ of new life to the encounter
6 new, original items have been added to Onyxia
- To further increase itemization options for all Heroes
Stat improvements to existing Onyxia items

Item Updates

With the advent of Mythic+ on Thrall, a good chunk of items had their stats reworked to improve their identity, and make them unique and keep their power level consistent with other equipment. These item improvements are part of an ongoing effort to widen itemization options and support all types of different Heroes and Archetypes.

The Item Rework focused on:

Improving items that lacked an identity
Improving items that were just ‘worse’ versions of other items
Improved items that lacked enough stats to be competitive.

Heroes who dive into Mythic Dungeons can now expect to find even more tailored and unique pieces of gear in Vanilla, further expanding the options for powering up your classless Hero.

Additionally, you can now refund any Mythic Items purchased from Edrim Skysong to get back your Mythic Coins. Previously, there was no way to refund items you bought, which was way too hardcore. Now you can, and that’s just great.

New Powerful Rings

In addition to the massive set of item updates, two new Rings based on the fabled Tarnished Elven Ring (arise, ye’ tarnished), are here to further expand your potential item arsenal. You can now grab both the Flattened Elven Ring and the Gorduk Knuckleband for rings with both Hit and Expertise on it. They make your finger tarnished, but whole.

Loot from Hidden Bosses Made More Available

Extremely elusive items that are received only from summoned bosses from an extensively long quest chain (Theldren, Jarien, Sothos, Kormok, Mor Greyhoof, etc.) have been merged to a single “Drop Pool”
This “Drop Pool” has a 20% chance of being added onto the last boss of every 50+ Dungeon as an Additional Loot Template.

Many secret or difficult to summon Vanilla Bosses have had their loot added to the Final Boss of their respective dungeons. Though it’s still easier to get gear from the boss itself, Heroes now have a chance to find that loot just by slaying the final boss of the dungeon.

This lets you see a wider variety of loot, and even items you might never have seen before. It’s one more way Ascension is increasing itemization for all Heroes.

Additional Lesser Enchantments Introduced

Dungeons are one of the most popular ways to Prestige on Ascension. When it comes to running Dungeons fast, Heroes need a reliable way to grab AoE spells without ruining their Classless Build.

A few weeks ago, new epic Mystic Enchantments introduced Lesser Versions of AoE spells to Ascension, meaning Heroes could grab abilities like Lesser Arcane Explosion, Lesser Flamestrike, or Lesser Blizzard to run dungeons effectively, without compromising their Draft Build: you could use the spell for as long as you wanted, and then swap out the RE when you were done.

This week, additional Lesser Spells made their way to Ascension. You can now use the following Mystic Enchants to temporarily add AoE Skills to your classless Hero without needing to actually roll them:

Lesser Rain of Fire
Lesser Volley

Additionally, Lesser Healing Spell Enchantments are also live, meaning you can–for example–level up drafting your TG Muti build while queueing as a Healer with the new Lesser Healing Touch RE!

Lesser Healing Touch

Lesser Holy Light

These Lesser Enchantments offer Heroes a way to pick up spells they need to Prestige or run dungeons, use them for as long as needed, and then swap them out for other Enchantments later on.

Lesser Area of Effect Mystic Enchants:

Lesser Arcane Explosion
Lesser Blizzard
Lesser Mind Sear
Lesser Flamestrike
Lesser Hurricane

Lesser Healing Spell Mystic Enchantments:

Lesser Holy Light
Lesser Healing Touch

Miscellaneous Improvements

A few quality of life changes worth mentioning went live on Ascension over the past few weeks:

Many PvP mods adjusted the strength of skills in PvP
Slice and Dice can now be rolled at level 1 if you know a Cat Form ability
- This helps Cat Builds have a way to consistently pick up this ability
- Convenient!
Pets will now be revive/called when you enter a Dungeon using the Dungeon Finder
Upcoming Nerfs to Warden of Demonreach
- It’s an improvement lol

Call Board Updates

Monsters needed to complete Call Board Hunt Quests now spawn faster
Marks of Ascension awarded from Call Board Quests will remain at their boosted Pilgrim's Bounty numbers

The Call Board is the premier place to grab quests to get Marks of Honor, and no one likes heading out to complete a quest only to find that the monsters haven’t respawned. Now, Monsters needed to complete Call Board Quests respawn MUCH faster when the quests are up. This ensures that when you venture out to complete a quest, you can do so confident that the monsters you need to slay will be there.

Additionally, the marks awarded for completing Call Board quests will remain at their boosted Pilgrim's Bounty Numbers!

These respawn timers are one more way of respecting your time while playing.

Mystic Droughts for Honor

Heroes can now buy Mystic Droughts for Honor Points
- These powerful items award one Mystic Enchanting Level
  - And a Mystic Extract
Ensure that there’s always something worth spending Honor Points on

Vanilla Open World Quests give Marks of Ascension

Quests you complete in the Open World now award Marks of Ascension!
- Quests award Marks based on their level bracket
  - i.e. level 10 quests give 10, level 20 quests give more, 30 will give more, etc.
Increased the rewards of open world prestige from 2500 to 3500

With Marks of Prestige added to Vanilla Quests, as well as an additional 1000 Marks for completing an Open World Prestige, Heroes should reach the end of their Open World runs with significantly more Marks of Ascension, adding value to different ways of leveling.

LFG Now Rewards Bags!

Heroes who complete an LFG dungeon run will now receive a bag as an additional reward. If you don’t have bags, you’ll now receive one at the end of your dungeon run. This helps Heroes get their inventory space by running a few dungeons so they can hold stuff and continue their adventure.

Additionally, bag vendors have been added to Start Zones so Heroes who are in a rush can bag-up before they leave the nest.

Bags are just one more QoL improvement to aid new players in their journey on Ascension.

The Book of Ascension

Two recent major quality of life updates made their way to the Book of Ascension companion this month.

Upon summoning, your Book of Ascension will now automatically rank up your skills
Leveling up while your Book of Ascension is out, will now automatically rank up your skills

This removes friction from the leveling process by removing the need to individually level up your spells. Now you can focus on your adventure without remembering half-way through that you forgot to rank up your skills.

Battleground Leveling Changes

Health and Mana are no-longer fully restored upon level up while inside a battleground
- Teams that achieve an early lead will no longer snowball by continually healing up each time they level
- This allows for a better back-and-forth competition between both teams

Battlegrounds are one of the most popular ways to Prestige on Ascension. However, gaining a full heal after leveling up gave teams that achieved an early lead a cascading advantage that let them swarm and overwhelm the other team. Now, leveling up in a battleground no longer restores mana and HP. This will tip the scales of BG leveling to feel more dangerous and exciting, with each team having the option to turn the tables.

This change serves to generally improve the Battleground leveling experience, creating games that’ll feel a lot more like a tug-of-war, than a landslide.