Heroes!

Realms have merged, portals to other dimensions have been traversed, and Mythic Dungeons are here! The past couple of weeks have been eventful, and the coming weeks will be even more action-packed. We’re so excited.

For this update we have a bunch of PvP tweaks, two brand new Legendary enchants and plenty of assorted buffs to just about everything. Let’s get into it!

Healing buffs

• [New Legendary Enchant]: Holy Spirit - Healing with Penance leaves a lingering Holy Spirit on the target, increasing the healing and critical effect chance of your next Holy Shock on the target by 15%, stacking up to 4 times. In addition, effective healing with Holy Light reduces the cooldown of Penance by 3s, and Penance now channels for 1 extra second, shooting an extra volley of light.

Combining the powers of the Discipline Priest and Holy Paladin trees, this new Legendary Enchantment combines the power of these two Holy healers. Below are a handful of other buffs to healing talents - perhaps some would be interesting to combine with the Holy Spirit legendary?

• Infusion of Light now also increases the critical healing effect of your Holy Light by 10/20%.
• Words of Healing no longer reduces the duration of Borrowed Time.
• Sacred Unity is now an epic enchant, but no longer refreshes Beacon of Light.
• Light's Grace now also reduces the cast time of your next Prayer of Healing.
• Tidecaller now reduces the effectiveness of Healing Wave on the target by 3% per stack, down from 5%.
• [New Capstone]: Gift of the Earthmother - Allows your Rejuvenation spell to benefit from spell haste.

To level the playing field a bit, Holy Radiance has also been tuned down slightly. 

• Holy Radiance now spreads 25% of the healing of Greater Heal, Flash Heal and Penance, down from 30%.

Even more Strength in Arms

• Strength of Arms can now trigger from Execute.
• Overpower now deals 120% weapon damage, from 110%, but now deals 35% reduced damage against players, from 25%.
• In for the Kill now also extends the base duration of your Rend by 6 seconds.

With these changes, Arms Warrior abilities will be even more fearsome. The primary goal of these changes is to make Arms builds stronger in PvE, which is why the damage increase to Overpower is offset in PvP by the increased PvP modifier.

Fear and Loathing 

• [New Capstone]: Unending Fury - While Bloodrage is active Fear effect durations are reduced by 30% and a successful Whirlwind reduces the cooldown of your next Whirlwind by 2 seconds.
• Intensify Rage now also reduces the health cost of Bloodrage by 25/50/75%.
• Increased the tick frequency of Tremor Totem to every 2 seconds, down from every 3 seconds.

Fear is an incredibly powerful and above all versatile tool in PvP combat. Unlike Polymorph, it’s usable on all kinds of targets. These changes are aimed at bringing Fear more in line with other forms of crowd control, so rather than choosing based on what’s strong you can pick what you want to play.

Stormhammer 

• [New Legendary Enchant]: Stormhammer - Your Concussion Blow is transformed into Concussion Blow (Stormhammer), an attack with 15 yard range that deals Nature damage. This attack does not stun the target, but increases your spell damage by 30% of your Stamina and reduces your physical damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds.

PvP Caster uniqueness

• Test of Faith now also increases the damage done by Smite and Holy Fire by 4/8/12% on targets at or below 50% health and the Capstone Bonus now includes Smite and Holy Fire in its effect.
• Divine Favor now increases the critical strike chance of ALL Holy spells by 100%.
• [New Epic Enchant]: Holy Chains - Your Holy Fire shackles the target with heavy chains, reducing their movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds.

With the release of the Legendary Twilight Paragon, many Holy casters turned away from the Light and embraced their inner darkness. Even so, these types of builds have struggled in PvP, largely due to not having a reliable slow. With these changes Holy casters get a slight buff in PvE and a lot more utility that lets them compete in PvP.

In general, the caster PvP builds that do the best are the ones that have a unique niche in which they are powerful. Frost mages, for example, are great at controlling their enemies movement and dishing out big bursts of damage. Our goal is for all different sorts of casters to have their own strengths and weaknesses, and these below changes are a step in that direction:

• Unrelenting Storm can now be triggered from dealing damage with Lightning Shield.
• Lightning Discharge now stuns for 2.5 seconds, up from 2 seconds, and deals 100% increased damage, up from 50%.
• Void Eruption now increases the cooldown of Backlash by 50%. It previously doubled it.

New Magic Armor spells

• [New Epic Enchant]: Frozen Mind - Replaces Frost Armor with Frozen MInd. While active, taking critical physical damage has a chance to make the attacker unable to critically strike for 3 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds. Additionally Increases your armor by 200% of your Intellect, but reduces your health by 5%. This can not be used together with other bar-changing abilities such as Stances or Forms.
• [New Epic Enchant]: Demonic Mind - Replaces Demon Armor with Demonic MInd. While active, dealing direct damage with spells reduces the targets healing taken by 10%, stacking up to 3 times. This does not stack with other similar effects. Additionally, your spell critical strike chance is increased by 5% but healing done reduced by 10%. This can not be used together with other bar-changing abilities such as Stances or Forms.

These epic enchants empower your passive Armor spells to offer unique and powerful effects which you can tailor to your build. Our hope with these  two new epics and the buffs to existing ones (found below), is to give each spec as many interesting options as possible. 

• Molten Mind now increases the mana cost of spells by 3%, down from 5%.
• Nimble Mind now grants 5% spell haste, up from 3%.
• Twisted Mind now increases spell power by 1 per level, up from 0.5.