Chapter 2 Skillcards, Balance, and New Abilities and Talents

Chapter 2: Skillcards, Balance, and New Abilities and Talents

The Chapter 2 Overview video releases on the 26th.

This article will cover the classless changes and just a few of the skillcard updates coming in Chapter 2.

• Expanded Skill Card Slots gives you more control over how you steer your build with Synergy Rolls
• Skill Cards can now be Used at Any Level so you can slot them at max level or while leveling!
• New Skill Cards in the Open World so you can adventure in Azeroth and unlock your favorite abilities and talents
• New Abilities and Talents
  • These will have skill cards available in the world once chapter 2 launches.
• Classless Updates to make more classless builds more viable
• Balance Changes to help diversify the meta, buff up underplayed spells, and bring down major outliers
• THESE ARE ONLY SOME OF THE UPDATES
• Explaining Wildcard Synergy Rolls, so you can be more deliberate with your rolls

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 SKILLCARDS AT LEVEL 60.
• You can remove it as long as you haven’t rolled it yet in case you made a mistake or change your mind!
• Once it’s slotted and rolled, it can’t be removed.

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 at a loss 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. 

When the chapter drops you’ll be able to slot these skillcards at level 60 without prestiging to improve your build immediately.

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 will have flexibility in when you slot them, opening up more ways to play.

Raid Trials Tuning

In tandem with these balance changes, In chapter 2 Raid trails will get some balance updates. To avoid every single mob 1-shotting while adding more depth and strategy, damage done by creatures will be decreased slightly, and instead healing reduction to the player will be added. 

This will create an environment where the difficulty can continue to increase without simply just resulting in every single mechanic 1-shotting.

They retain their difficulty but to simultaneously move away from one-shotty mechanics and more towards a battle of attrition. 

New Abilities and Talents

Chapter 2 also will bring many new abilities and talents to Elune. 

Every single one of these will be available through skillcards in the world, in addition to the card packs and rolling.

Toxic Surge

Flourishing Tranquility

Renewing Light

Urgent Prayer

Thousand Cuts

Pack Enhancement

Launch Explosive Trap

Launch Immolation Trap

Loa's Assault

Clean Pass

Cataclysmic Sundering

Battle Glaive

Air & Water Elemental Totem

Frosty Frost Frostbolt

Leader of the Elements

Physics in Practice

Pack Leader

Toss and Throw

Elemental Fusion

Unseen Assassin

Lich’s Calling

Master of Kunai

Swirling Maelstrom

Magical Ammunition

Barrage Overload

Inner Hunt

Gul’dan’s Chosen

Inevitable Decimation

Destructive Bargain

Fury of the Eagle

Kingsbane

Rejuvenating Swiftness

Shields of Dominance

Dominant Word: Shield

Prophetic Focus

Widowmaker

Glimmer of Light

Beacon of Virtue

Saber Fangs

Inevitable Vengeance

Classless Balance Updates

An update went live this last week to open up talent that impeded your ability to make a classless hero. Specifically talents that had both a GENERAL and A SPECIFIC effect, had the general effect opened up as much as possible.

Before:

After:

Improving Classless Foundations

Talents are one of the biggest ways to gain power for your classless hero, offering stats like damage, haste, critical strike, and more to support the foundations of your build. However, many of these talents are restricted to school specific bonuses: for example, Winter’s Chill offers 3% frost critical strike, and Darkness increases shadow damage done by 3%.

These school specific bonuses are at odds with the idea of classless: for example, if you were interested in either of the above talents for a Shadow-Frost build, the school specific bonus wouldn’t benefit a portion of your build. The frost critical strike only benefited the frost half of your build, while the shadow damage only helped the shadow portion.

This type of school-based investment limits you: if you invest those three points into Winter’s Chill’s frost critical strike and its Winter’s Chill effect, you do so at the expense of every other spell school regardless of the classless combination you’re trying to play. There is a large opportunity cost to these kinds of choices. In the current state of the game, if you spend half of your points in mage and half in shadow priest, you end up just being really bad at both.

Here are the changes planned to address this:

• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Nature's Grace now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Nature's Grace Mystic Enchantment now affects the talent, and will increase the Melee, Spell and Ranged haste from Nature's Grace by 2/4/6%.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Wild Felfire now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Time Distortion now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Frozen Haste from Frost Bomb now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Swift Justice now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Infused Gems now increase spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Alacrity now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Healing Focus now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Natural Focus now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Celestial Focus now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Nature's Focus now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Subtlety now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fel Concentration now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Spiritual Focus now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Eye of the Storm now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Nature's Guardian now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Frozen Core now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Enlightenment now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Gift of the Earthmother now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Unyielding Faith now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Holy spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Winter's Chill now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Frost spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Arcane Instability now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Killer Instinct now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Melee spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Master of Elements now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Healing Grace now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Lunar Guidance now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Dreamstate now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Backlash now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Blessing of the Eternals now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Spell critical strike chance.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - A New Dawn now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Holy spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Improved Divine Star now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Holy spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Sharpened Claws now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Melee spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Darkness now increases all damage done instead of just Shadow damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Enhanced Weapon Mastery now increases all damage done instead of just Physical damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Playing with Fire now increases all damage done instead of just Magic damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Chilled to the Bone now increases all damage done instead of just Frost damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Intensity now increases all damage done instead of just Magic damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Crusade now increases all damage done instead of just Physical Holy damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Malediction now increases all damage done instead of just Magic damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Focused Power now increases all damage done instead of just Holy Shadow damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Arctic Winds now increases all damage done instead of just Frost damage.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Shattered Barrier now increases all damage done instead of just Magic damage. 
  • It still increases all Frost damage under the effects of Ice Barrier

New Ability Levels

• [Align] -  [Elune] - can now be rolled at level 1.
• [Cauterizing Fire] -  [Elune] - can now be rolled at level 1.
• [Prowl] -  [Elune] - Prowl is now available at level 1

Season 9 Chapter 2 Balance Updates

The following is the balance changes currently in the works for Season 9 Chapter 2. This list is not absolutely everything and is still subject to change based on feedback!

Caster DPS

Critical Strike Damage Scaling

There was an update a few months back to address critical strike damage scaling, but a few talents were still using old functionality. With chapter 2, Lightning Mastery and Empowered Frostbolt will now behave like other Critical Strike Damage Scaling talents. These talents just worked differently compared to all other critical strike damage scaling talents because they were procs. Here’s what you need to know: 

How Critical Strike Damage should function.

• Normal hit: 1,000 damage
• Critical Strike (no talents): 1,750 damage. 
• Critical Strike (Talent): 2,000 damage.
• Critical Strike (Talent + Lightning Mastery):  2,375 damage.

 The Bug (What Was Going Wrong):

• When you had a talent like "Lightning Mastery" (which is supposed to add a 50% bonus to critical strike damage), it was incorrectly calculated.
• Instead of adding 50% of the base crit damage (which would be an extra 375, making the total 2,375), it was adding 50% of the total crit damage with talents (50 extra, making it 2,500) resulting in an extra 125 damage done.
• [Fired Up] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where some dots would benefit from Fired Up but not consume it.

Warlock 

Elune & Area-52

• [Backdraft] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed an issue where Backdraft would not be consumed when used with temporal haste.
• [Demonic Power] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed a bug where the cast time was not properly reduced by the Demonic Power Talent for Wild Imps, with rank 2 the cast time will now be 1.5 seconds per cast from 2 seconds. This will result in roughly a 20% DPS increase for Wild Imps.
• [Dark Domination] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed a bug where Dark Domination was not increasing the damage of your Wild Imps. It now increases the damage of Wild Imps by 15%.
• [Fire and Brimstone] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed, Incinerate now grants 2 additional stacks of Soul Spark.
• [Siphon Life] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Siphon Life now has a 0.1 second internal cooldown.
• [Soul Leech] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Soul Leech can no longer heal more than 15% of your Maximum HP and now has a 3 second ICD, and now gives 4% Mana up from 2%. 
  • The internal cooldown is necessary in this case because there are many ways to utilize Soul Leech and if the ICD was not added the amount healed would have to be reduced so far that it would make builds like Pure Chaos Bolt / Corrupted Maelstrom much weaker vs Shadow Bolt.
• [Battle Cultist Firebrand] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed an issue where refreshing your immolate could cause it to lose damage ticks.
• Haunt heals up to 20% of your maximum health.

Elune

• [Fel Damnation] -  [Elune] - Hand of Gul'dan now reduces the cooldown of Fel/Dark Domination by 10 seconds from 30. Hand of Gul’dan was able to spawn a tremendous amount of Wild Imps through this combo, not only was this massively over performing on the DPS meter but was also at the pinnacle for some FPS issues caused in raids. Being able to constantly spawn Wild Imps with nearly every GCD created balance asymmetries in the ways it was possible to play the build. This made it impossible to balance versus what would be a more traditional way of playing it without completely removing the synergy loop.
• [Shadow Born] -  [Elune] - Shadow Born now has 0.1 second internal cooldown on gaining stacks.
• [Dark Reclamation] -  [Elune] - Dark Reclamation now only reduces the cooldown of Shadow Burn per stack instead of reducing the cooldown AND increasing the damage by 5%.
• [Burning Flames] -  [Elune] - increased the duration of the effect applied to 6s up from 4s.
• [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Blood Arrow and Lingering Shadows (from Shadow Dagger) would not correctly consume Necromancer's Touch uppon reapplication, this led to specific abuse case where players would keep recasting these abilities before the damage over time effect would fall off to circumvent the damage boost consumption. 
• [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Deathbringer and Unbounded Deathbringer wound not consume charges of Spiderbite despite benefiting from them. 
• [Elune] - Soul Void: Fixed the interaction where it would previously fail to stack up on the same target for more than 1 player. Having multiple in the same raid is possible now without tanking your own DPS. 
• [Elune] - Soul Void: Clarified wording to mention that Withered Soul does increase damage of your Drain Life by 25%. This was previously unclear. 
• [Elune] - Buffed Necromancer's Touch: Now increases damage of your Drain Life by 30%. Up from 25%.
• [Elune] - Buffed Biting Drain: Now increases Drain Life's critical strike damage bonus by 35%. Up from 30%.

Shaman

Elune

• [Booming Thunder] -  [Elune] - Increased the bonus damage to Earth Shock to 18% per stack from 15%
• [Spellslinger/Unbound Spellslinger] -  [Elune] - These effects now do 25% less damage if triggered from Elemental Focus.
• [Elemental Equilibrium] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where some triggered effects could trigger Elemental Equilibrium.

Mage

Elune & Area-52

• [Molten Fury] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Molten Fury now increases the damage of all FIRE (not just mage fire) spells and abilities in addition to its previous effects (meaning Lava Lash, Explosive Shot, etc). This behavior was implemented for rank 2, but not rank 1 and not included in either tooltip.
• [Blizzard] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - The base damage and scaling of Blizzard has been increased by 10%
• [Improved Blizzard] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now increases the number of damaging waves during Blizzard's duration.
• [Flash Freeze] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now also reduces the cast speed of your next blizzard by 25%
• [Shatter] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now has a capstone bonus; Enhances your Ice Lance by converting any critical strike chance exceeding 100% into bonus damage.
• [Brain Freeze] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now increases the damage of all Mage Frost, and Mage Arcane spells against targets affected by your Fireball by 2/4/6%, and your Arcane Missiles and Frostbolt by an additional 2/4/6%.

Elune

• [Battle Mage] -  [Elune] - Fixed an issue where Battle Mage could not be triggered from Flesh Hook.
• [Frostflame Brain Shock] -  [Elune] - No longer requires Brain Freeze.
• [Arcane Divinity] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Arcane Divinity would trigger Arcane Blast (Divine) alongside Temporal Blast. This offered asymmetric power to Temporal Blast because of it. Arcane Blast (Divine) would be correctly cast INSTEAD of Arcane Blast (not alongside it)
• [Arcane Divinity] -  [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Arcane Blast (Divine) by 20%.
• [Arcane Barrage] -  [Elune] - Prophet of Wrath, Divine Prophet and Arcane Divinity now work with Arcane Barrage.

Melee DPS

Boss Armor and PHysical DPS

• This is a change we are experimenting with to bring better balance to traditional Physical DPS dealers.
• Currently on Elune one of the predominant ways to build Physical DPS is through Hybrid Gear with Mental Quickness because Spell Power also grants Weapon Damage on ascension. Forgoing the amount of ArP and critical strike on your other gear and just going for the highest weapon DPS posssible.
  • The changes below will result in roughly + or - 1% of your overall damage being increased or decreased if you choose to not scale ArP at all.
• Bosses on Elune now take 8% more damage from melee damaging physical abilities and 6% from physical ranged attacks.
  • This will affect things like Mortal Strike, but will not affect Lava Lash for example.
• Bosses on Elune now have 13-16% increased armor (slightly varying on boss to boss).
  • This is to slightly off-set the buff granted to Physical DPS and to increase the value of Armor Penetration (which also only affects melee/ranged physical damaging abilities). 
• This ends up as a slight net buff for all physical damaging abilities and even moreso if you have copious amounts of Armor Penetration which is prevalent in future raid tiers.

Fire Car, Snek and Predator’s Wrath

Elune

•  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Sharpened Claws now increases your critical strike chance with all Ranged, Melee and Spells instead of just Melee spells and abilities.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Nature's Grace now increases spell, ranged and melee haste instead of just spell haste.
• These changes are listed above. But also have a drastic impact for these builds.
• [Charred Bite] [Elune] - now increases the damage of your Searing Pain and Incinerate by 15%, buffed from 10% per stack.
• [Serpent Venom]  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Serpent Venom (Rank 6) had faster tickrate than intended. All ranks of Rip and all other ranks of Serpent Venom had a tick rate of 2 seconds. Serpent Venom (Rank 6) was mistakenly at 1,5 sec.
• Serpent Venom (Rank 6) now has a 12 second duration, up from 9 to ensure you do not lose ticks per cast.
• [Serpent Form] [Elune] - Reduced scaling of poisonous strikes by 20%. This transform was scaling much higher than intended.
• [Kindles for Holy Fire] Now increases the damage of your Holy Fire by 15%. Down from 20%. [Righteous Radiance] Reduced base damage and scaling of Righteous Flames 10%.
• [Elune] Reduced base damage and scaling of Serpent Venom by 20%. As a Rip transform, Serpent Venom had 3 times the base damage and scaling over Rip, while having the ability to benefit from Nature and/or Physical modifiers. 
• [Elune] Traumatic Wounds: Dealing damage with Ferocious bite now extends the duration of your Rip by 2 seconds. Up from 1 seconds.

Holy DPS / Paladin

Elune

• [Dark Justicar] -  [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Justicar's Vengeance by 30%.
• [Seal of Command] -  [Elune] - Seal of Command now deals 35% weapon damage, from 40%.
• [All That is Right] - [NEW] -  [Elune] - Dealing Damage with Seal of Righteousness increases the damage of Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Righteousness by 7%, stacking up to 5 times.
  • Seal of Command was outshining all seals on Elune while also having the ability to cleave. This buff and introduction allows for an interesting twist on the seals and their strength.
• Divine Storm heals up to 15% of your base health per target hit.
  • This is base health so that this is not weaker for Retribution DPS vs. Tanks
• [Elune] [Twilight Paragon] can now trigger from Penance.
• [Ascended Holy Shock] Now increases damage and healing of Holy Shock by 100%. 
• [Resolve of the Just] Now increases damage of Exorcism by 100%. 
• [Resolve of the Just] Increased damage and scaling of the triggered Holy Explosion by 30%.
• [Righteous Radiance] Now also triggers of Holy spells.

Enhancement

Elune

• [Super Hot] -  [Elune] - now triggers from any spell criticals (required Fire before) and increases damage of your next Lava Lash by 15%. Down from 20%.
• [Upheaval] -  [Elune] - Increased the weapon damage of Upheaval from 200% to 250%.
• [Searing Rage] Searing Rage makes your next Lava Lash, Ice Lash, Upheaval deal 50% and Lava Sweep deals 35% increased damage. Down from 50% for all Lava Lash scaling abilities. 

Fury

Elune & Area-52

• [Titan’s Grip] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now also increases your chance to hit with Auto Attacks from your Off-Hand an additional 10%.

Elune

• [Titanic Fury] -  [Elune] -  Increases all Physical Damage dealt by 15%, down from 20% but is now increased to 25% under the effects of Titan’s Grip. (This will be 25% with TG).
• [Titanic Power] -  [Elune] - Increases the damage of your next direct Warrior ability with a global cooldown by 15% from 20% but is now doubled under the effects of Titan's Grip. (This will be 30% with TG).
• [Heavy Arms] -  [Elune] -  The Slam cooldown reduction is now doubled while under the effects of Titans Grip or while wielding a single two-hander.
• [Shieldsmasher] -  [Elune] - Savage Blade, and Titanic Strike in addition to Dispatch and Counterattack now grant a stack of Shieldsmasher.
• [Built up Thirst] -  [Elune] - has been reworked; it now increases the damage of your next Bloodthirst by 10%, up from 8% for each combo point spent.
• [Spell Shredder] - [Elune] - Reduced the attack power and spell power coefficients by 15%. 
• [Elemental Rends] - [Elune] - Reduced the attack power and spell power coefficients by 15%.
• [Titanic Strike] -  [Elune] - Now deals 20% increased damage while you have two handed weapons equipped.
• [Titanic Mutilate] -  [Elune] -  Now deals 20 increased damage while you have two handed weapons equipped.

General

Elune

• [Tools of War] -  [Elune] - Fixed an issue causing Tools of War to trigger from unintended sources such as triggered attacks such as Windfury or Hack and Slash.
• [Martial Crescendo] -  [Elune] - Fixed an issue causing Tools of War to trigger from unintended sources such as triggered attacks such as Windfury or Hack and Slash.
• [Martial Crescendo] -  [Elune] -  Increased the duration of Martial Crescendo buff to 8 seconds.
• [Blood and Guts] -  [Elune] - No longer consumes Disembowel.
• [Remorseless Execution] -  [Elune] - Dealing damage with Execute now refreshes your Slice and Dice duration to its 5 point combo point maximum in addition to granting you Remorseless.

Poisons and Blood Venom

Elune

• [Venom Coated Blade] -  [Elune] -Deadly Throw, Envenom and Chimera Shot can now also consume Mortal Sting stacks to trigger Venom Coated Blade.
• [Venomous Wound] -  [Elune] - Venomous Wound has been renamed to Advantageous Venom and is now a buff on the player, rather than a debuff on the target and it now grants 4% increased damage per stack.
• [Toxic Strikes] -  [Elune] - Deadly Throw, Envenom and Chimera Shot now benefit from and can consume Toxic Strikes.
• [Festering Wound] -  [Elune] - Critically striking with Stormstrike can now also trigger Festering Wound.
• [Blood Venom] -  [Elune] - Blood Venom will now be able to critically strike.
• [Blood Venom] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing Blood Venom to not behave in a similar function to other poisons, it will now properly benefit from melee critical strike chance.
• [Blood Venom] -  [Elune] - Can now be triggered by Deadly Throw, Chimera Shot, and Envenom in addition to Mortal Strike 
• [Poison Nova] -  [Elune] - Poison Nova now scales with Instant Poison damage modifiers instead of Deadly Poison. 
• [Poison Nova] -  [Elune] - Poison Nova now increases the damage taken from the casters Deadly Poison, Envenom and Instant Poison by 20% for 12 seconds.
• [Deadly Follow-up] -  [Elune] - Increased the chance to regain charges from finishers from 5% to 10% per combo point.

Melee Hunter

Elune

• [Savage Blade] -  [Elune] - Increased the weapon damage of Savage Blade from 130% to 170%
• [Deadly Instinct] -  [Elune] - Increased the charges from 4 to 5.
• [Black Widow Strike] -  [Elune] - Increased the base damage gained of Black Widow Strike by 25%.
• [Black Widow Strike] -  [Elune] - Increased the attack power and spell power coefficient of Black Widow Strike by 25%.

Swashbuckler

Elune

• [Swashbuckler: Shocktrooper] -  [Elune] - Now reduces the cooldown of your Shaman shocks by 2 seconds. Up from 1.5.
• [Swashbuckler: Flurry of Blows] - [Elune] - Increased the haste granted by Swashbuckler: Matched Blows from 20% to 25%.
• [Swashbuckler: Matched Blows] -  [Elune] - Now also increases agility by 3%.
• [Swashbuckling Duelist] -  [Elune] - Increases the weapon damage of Pirate’s Flurry from 200% to 225%.

Ninja

Elune & Area-52

• [Deadly Throw] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now benefits from; Seal fate, Aggression talents and the buff provided by Dispatch.
• [Throwing Specialization] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] -  Now has a capstone that grants; Your Shuriken Toss, Glaive Toss, and Deadly Throw deal 15% increased damage if you are at least 15 yards from your target.
• [Shuriken Toss] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Increased the damage of Shuriken Toss by 25%.

Elune

• [Swift Shadows] -  [Elune] - Can now trigger from Deadly Throw.
• [Gloaming Embrace] - [Elune] - Now also triggers from Deadly Throw.
• [Shadow of Death] -  [Elune] - Now also triggers from Deadly Throw.
• [Forbidden Dance] -  [Elune] - While the Forbidden Dance buff is active, Ambush and Shuriken Toss costs 25 less energy, and now also causes your shadow to throw a Shadow Dagger at your target.
• [Forbidden Powers] -  [Elune] - Now triggers from any ranged ability. And the proc chance has been increased to 100% from 75%.

Hunter

Elune & Area-52

• [Serpent Sting] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Base Damage and Scaling increased by 10%.
• [Kill Shot] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Increased the damage of Kill Shot by 30%.
• [Sniper] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Now increases the damage of Kill shot in addition to its other effects.
• [Rapid Killing] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Kill Shot now benefits from the Capstone bonus of this talent.

Elune

• [Kill Shot] -  [Elune] - Spot Weakness no longer increases the damage of Kill Shot.
• [Arcane Shelling] -  [Elune] - Now benefits all Aimed shot scaling spells.
• [Target Spotted] -  [Elune] - Reduced the ranged weapon damage of Orbital Arrows from 100% to 80%.
• [Trick Shots] -  [Elune] - now affects Kill Shot, allowing it to ricochet.
• [Trick Shots] -  [Elune] - Each target struck by Aimed Shot, Kill Shot or Arcane Shot for 8 seconds after consuming Trick Shots increases the damage of your next Multi-Shot by 5-10%, stacking 5 times.
• [Deadly Aim] -  [Elune] - Your ranged auto shots now have a chance to reset the cooldown of Kill shot in addition to its other effects.
• [Burst Shot] -  [Elune] - Can now also be triggered by Kill shot in addition to its other effects.
• [Pyroshot] -  [Elune] - Can now also be triggered by Kill shot in addition to its other effects.
• [Shapeshifter’s Aim] -  [Elune] - Now also increases the damage of Kill shot in addition to its other effects.
• [Bone Arrow] -  [Elune] - The damage over time of Bone Arrow can now critically tick on Wildcard.
• [Bone Arrow] -  [Elune] - The internal cooldown for triggering Rapid Killing has been lowered to 8, from 10 seconds.
• [Bone Arrow] -  [Elune] - Increased the spell power coefficient of the Bone Arrow bleed by 50%, and the ranged attack power coefficient by 100%.

Locust Hunter

Elune

• [Locust Shot] -  [Elune] - Increased the ranged weapon damage from 80% to 110%.
• [Locust Ranger] -  [Elune] - Now increases the damage of Wild Quiver and Wild Locust Swarm by 15%.
• [Wild Wrath] -  [Elune] - Increased the Wrath mod from 8% to 20% per stack.
• [Wild Wrath] -  [Elune] - Now also increases the critical strike chance of Wrath by 10% per stack.
• [Expunge] -  [Elune] - Cobra Venom can now critically hit, and the spell power and attack power coefficient of Cobra Venom and Expunge has been increased by 50%.
• [Hydra’s Sting] -  [Elune] - New mechanic: Dealing damage with Serpent Sting now reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 2 sec.
• [Locust Resurgence] -  [Elune] - Increased the Chimera Shot cooldown reduction from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• [Bestial Assault] -  [Elune] - Now has a 100% chance to grant a stack, from 50%.
• [Bestial Assault] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing Bestial Assault to have a lower proc chance against players.
• [Burst Shot] -  [Elune] - Increased the base weapon damage of Burst Shot from 30% to 35%.
• [Burst Shot] -  [Elune] - Increased the ranged weapon damage per level from 0.6% to 1%.
• [Pyroshot] -  [Elune] - Kill Shot and Chimera Shot can now also trigger Pyroshot.
• [Oil Dipped Arrow] -  [Elune] - Increased the duration of Oilsoaked from 8 to 12 seconds.

Healing

Holy

Elune & Area-52

• [Inspiration] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - can now be applied by getting a critical effect from one of your Holy healing spells. Instead of being limited to specific Priest spells.
• [Divine Aegis] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Has been reworked. Divine Aegis can now trigger on all targets critically healed for 4/8/12% of the amount healed. Divine Aegis can now trigger from instant cast spells like Holy Shock or Circle of Healing. Single Target Healing Spells shield for 8/16/25% of the amount, leaving them unchanged in current strength as well as adding more options to your Divine Aegis.
• [Sheath of Light] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been reworked. Sheath of Light can now trigger on all targets critically healed for 4/7/10% of the amount healed. Sheath of Light can now trigger from instant cast spells like Holy Shock or Circle of Healing. Single Target Healing Spells are now twice as effective, leaving them unchanged in current strength as well as adding more options to your Sheathe of Light.
• [Divine Favor] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed, it now in addition to its previous effect increases the healing of your next Holy Spell by 50%.
• [Divine Favor] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now has a 1 minute cooldown, down from 1 min 30 sec.
• [Aura Mastery] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] -  has been buffed, its cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute (down from 1 min 30s)
• [Borrowed Time] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed a bug with Borrowed Time where it was only granting half of its stated effect. It now correctly increases the amount absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 8/16/24/32/40%. (Previously this was only granting 20% at rank 5 of the talent.)
• [Prayer of Preservation] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed an issue where Preservation was not correctly applying and consuming.
• [Improved Power Word: Shield] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and now has a capstone effect that causes Power Word: Shield to reduce the duration of Crowd control Effects by 25% for 4 seconds.
• [Blessed Recovery] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - The Blessed Recovery Heal has been buffed from 5/10/15% of the damaging critical damage taken to 20/30/40%.
• [Blessed Recovery] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Blessed Recovery now has an 8 second internal cooldown on the heal triggered after being the victim of a critical strike.
• [Empowered Renew] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - capstone has been buffed. It now heals the target for 25% of the total periodic effect up from 15%.
• [Renewed Through Absolution] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - The heal provided by has been buffed, its scaling has been increased by 25%.
• [Flash of Light] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and had its base healing increased by 25%.
• [Flash of Light] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now heals for 40% more when healing allies below 35% health.
• [Flash of Light] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now costs 14% base mana up from 8%.
• [Flash Heal] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now heals the last ally healed by Flash Heal in the past 10 seconds for 25% of the amount healed.
• [Flash Heal] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and it now heals for 20% more.

Elune

• [Swift Favor] -  [Elune] - has been buffed and now triggers from any effective Holy healing spell with a cast time.
• [Swift Favor] -  [Elune] - now reduces the cooldown of Divine Favor by 2 seconds down from 3 seconds. (This change was made in tandem with Divine Favors cooldown being reduced from 1 minute 30 sec baseline to 1 minute.)
• [Borrowing Time] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where gaining Borrowed Time through the Borrowing Time talent was not granting the critical strike chance buff from Words of Healing
• [Life of Light] -  [Elune] - The base healing of Light of Life has been increased by 50%.
• [Benevolent Nova] - [Elune] - Fixed a bug where the internal cooldown of this spell was far shorter than intended. It now correctly has a 3 second internal cooldown.
• [Prayer of Preservation] - [Elune] - has been buffed and now heals for 25% more.
• [Preservation] - [Elune] - has been buffed and now heals for 25% more.

Penance

• [Benevolent Crusader] -  [Elune] - Reduced the cast time reduction of penance to 8% per stack down from 12%. Holy Fire, Exorcism, and Smite are unaffected and still gain 12% reduction in cast time per stack.
• [Divine Guidance] -  [Elune] -  The increase to Penance healing after using a damaging penance has been reduced from 75% down to 25%.
• [Spirit Frost] -  [Elune] - Reduced the base healing and scaling of Icy Spirit by 60%.
• [Spirit Frost] -  [Elune] - Now increases the healing done by Icy spirit by 33% per stack.
• [Spirit Frost] -  [Elune] - Finishing a damaging Penance channel now removes up to 3 stacks of Spirit frost.
• [Spirit Frost] -  [Elune] - Previously, the best way to play Spirit Frost was to only utilize it at one stack. This will act as a buff to Cryotherapist who utilize it at higher stack amounts while being a nerf to penance healers.
• [Cryotherapist] -  [Elune] - Cryotherapy’s heal now scales from an additional 4% of your healing power per tick.

Cauterizing Flames

• Radiant Flames (HoT effect from Flames of the Apostate (Cauterizing Flames)) will now prioritize people without the HoT -> then the lowest HP targets. 
• The Periodic Heaing Effect from Cauterizing Flames can now critically heal like most other HoTs.

Oracle of the Eclipse

Elune

• [Natural Zeal] -  [Elune] - now reduces the cooldown of Divine Favor by 2 sec down from 3 sec. (This has been reduced in conjunction with Divine Favor having its cooldown reduced from 1 minute 30 sec to 1 minute.)
• [Oracles Eclipse Solar] -  [Elune] -  has been buffed and now increases the healing of Holy Light by 25% up from 15%.
• [Elune’s Guidance] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing the proc chance to not be matched between the Holy and Nature side of Elune’s Guidance, they’re both now 100% proc chance. The internal cooldown has been increased from 12 to 16.
• [Oracle of the Eclipse] -  [Elune] - The max charges of Blessing of the Moon have been reduced from 5 to 3.

Nature

Nature HOTs

Elune & Area-52

• [Living Spirit] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed an issue with the capstone effect of Living Spirit. Previously, if the rejuvenation heal brought the player over 50% health, it would not trigger the additional 50% heal from Living Spirit.
• [Lifebloom] -  [Elune] - [Area 52] - has been buffed. Its periodic healing now does 60% more healing at 1 stack, 20% more healing at 2 stacks and 6% more healing at 3 stacks. (The intent of these changes is to make the healing more frontloaded toward 1 stack and give HoT healers another spot healing tool.)
• [Growing Earth] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now affects Healing Touch in addition to its previous effects.
• [Tranquility] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now causes you to be immune to silence, stuns, and interrupt effects.
• [Swiftmend] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and now has 2 charges baseline, its cooldown remains unchanged.
• [Everliving] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now increases the healing of Swiftmend by 3% per stack. When fully stacked, your next Swiftmend does not consume a charge, Rejuvenation or Regrowth when used.
• [Elune] - [Area-52] - Fixed a bug where Swiftmend would not gain healing from generic sources of % Nature healing. (This includes but is not limited to talents like: Genesis, Gift of Nature and Purification.)

Elune

• [Healing Garden] -  [Elune] - has been buffed and now extends the duration of Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth on your allies by 1.5 seconds up from 1 second.
• [Bloom] -  [Elune] - Bloom has been buffed and had its healing increased by 25% and can now critically strike with its healing effect.

Overflow

Elune

[Overflow] -  [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Flowing stated it gave you the Overflowing buff after reaching 4 stacks. It now correctly states that it gives you Overflowing after reaching 3 stacks.

[Overflow] -  [Elune] - Overflowing has been buffed and now increases the healing of your next Chain Heal by 75% up from 50%.

[Overflowing Cultivation] -  [Elune] - has had its rarity reduced to Rare down from Legendary.

Shaman

Elune & Area-52

• [Healing Stream Totem] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - The healing of Healing Steam Totem has been increased by 100%.
• [Healing Stream Totem] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now has a 10 second duration down from 45 sec.
• [Healing Stream Totem] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - now heals up to 3 party/raid members within 30 yards of the totem. (This healing can only target players.)
• [Restorative Totems] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - is now a 5 talent point investment up from 3 talent point investment. It now causes your Healing Stream Totem to gain an additional 5/10/15/20/25% of your healing power(This is Multiplicative, not additive). Increases the effect of your Mana Spring Totem by 6/12/18/24/30% and Mana Tide Totem by 24/48/72/96/120%. The cooldown of Mana Tide Totem is reduced by 3/6/9/12/15 seconds. In addition when the final rank of this talent is learned your next Healing Stream Totem heals for 100% more (These changes have been made to make Healing Stream Totem a more attractive button to press in PvP and PvE and to give it some form of tempo usage within PvP specifically.)
•  [Earth Shield] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - Increased the healing of Earth Shield by 60% when hit by a player. (Unchanged for PvE. Previously, this was just buffed only in PvE, this removes the differences in the PvE vs. PvP baseline scaling)
• [Improved Chain Heal] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and now increases the healing of Chain Heal by 10/20% up from 5/10%.
• [Lesser Healing Wave] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] - has been buffed and its base healing has been increased by 15%.
• [Lesser Healing Wave] -  [Elune] - [Area-52] -  has been buffed and its coefficient has been increased by 23%.

Elune

- [Ebbing Tides Totem] -  [Elune] - Reduced the global cooldown of Ebbing Tides Totem to 0.5 seconds.

- [Symbiotic Serendipity] -  [Elune] - Now also includes Rejuvenation in the list of spells that can trigger Serendipity.

- [Ebbing Tides Totem] -  [Elune] - Increased the duration of the Ebbing Tides buff from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.

Grove Ranger

Elune

• [Grove Medicine] -  [Elune] - New effect: Chimera Shot now causes a Medicinal Pulse when cast on a target affected by your Medicinal Sting, healing up to 5 nearby allies within 20 yards, prioritizing the most injured. Giving more an on-demand to the Grove Ranger while also increasing their AoE potency. 
• [Elune] - [Grove Ranger] - Grove Medicine has been buffed and its coefficient has been increased by 25% it now scales from 2.3% of your ranged attack power up from 1.8% 
• [Elune] - [Grove Ranger] - Medicinal Sting has been buffed and its coefficient has been increased by 25% it now scales from 2.3% of your ranged attack power up from 1.8% Blooming Shot now has a 10 yard radius up from 8.

Cauterizing Fire

Elune

• [Flames of the Apostate] -  [Elune] - Has a new additional effect; Allies that stand within the Flamestrike that consumes this buff now take 40% increased healing from your Cauterizing Fire.
• [Missile Barrage] -  [Elune] - Can now be triggered from Cauterizing Fire heals.

Dark Surgeon

Elune

• [Dark Surgeon] -  [Elune] - Dark Circle of Healing now heals 5 targets down from 10. This effect could previously heal pets and some guardians, now prioritizes the lowest health players.
• [Dark Surgeon] -  [Elune] - Dark Circle of Healing now heals for an additional 50% of the initial heal over 3 seconds to allies healed by this spell.
• [Dark Surgeon] -  [Elune] -  Dark Circle of Healing is now a smart heal and will prioritize the 5 most injured nearby allies within range. (These changes will be a small nerf in raw healing but should help Dark Surgeon keep allies alive now that the heal focuses injured allies and is now 50% stronger on the targets it heals.)
• [Dark Surgeon] Reminder that Dark Surgeon’s Circle of Healing can trigger other effects like Divine Aegis and Sheath of Light.

Vampire Lord

Elune

• [Vampire Lord] -  [Elune] - The healing from Vampire Lord is now increased by 10x up from 4x while in spirit allocation. The healing from Vampire Lord has been reduced from 2.5% of direct shadow damage and 1% of periodic damage down to 1% of direct shadow damage and 0.4% of periodic damage dealt. This being so strong in intellect allocation allowed people to do competitive DPS and heal for more than many healers.
• [Vampire Lord] -  [Elune] - Now has a 0.1 second internal cooldown.

Steward of Eternity

Elune

• [Synchronize] -  [Elune] -  Synchronize now heals up to 3 nearby allies that are most injured in addition to healing all nearby Aligned or Time-bound allies. 

Divine Blademaster

Elune

• [Blademaster] -  [Elune] - The icons of the different Blademaster talents have been updated to more easily differentiate between them.
• [Divine Blademaster] -  [Elune] - Reduced the Holy spell damage increase from 200% to 100% of your strength but increased the duration to 6 seconds from 4. The armor will remain 200%.

Stormhammer

Elune

• [Hammer of the Storms] - [Elune] - Will now also increase the damage dealt by your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Stormstrike by 15%.

Undaunted

Elune

• [Victorious Stand] -  [Elune] - Increased the cooldown reduction of Last stand when you use Victory Rush from 5s to 10s of reduction.

Bulwark

Elune

• [Bulwark] -  [Elune] - Bulwark can now be cast while Shield block is active.

Self-Sustain

• Soul Leech now heals up to 15% of your maximum health
• Soul Leech now has an internal cooldown of 3 seconds.
  • The internal cooldown is necessary in this case because there are many ways to utilize Soul Leech and if the ICD was not added the amount healed would have to be reduced so far that it would make builds like Pure Chaos Bolt / Corrupted Maelstrom much weaker vs Shadow Bolt.
• Improved Soul Leech now returns 2/4% of your missing mana from 1.5 -> 3%.
• Haunt heals up to 20% of your maximum health.
• Siphon Life, Fel Concentration, Vampiric Embrace heals up to 5% of your maximum health.
• Divine Storm heals up to 15% of your base health, this is per target hit.
  • This is base health so that this is not weaker for Retribution DPS vs. Tanks.

Explaining Wildcard Synergy Rolls

Synergy rolls are an occasional roll that happens that has been in game since launch. These occasional rolls are a Wildcard mechanic that either upgrades one of your talents OR picks one of your abilities and talents and gives you a synergistic talent or ability based on what was picked.

• These synergies are based on things that modify or affect a given ability or are modified by an existing talent. These are NOT curated builds made for you by developers.

For example, if you have Pyroblast in your build, you might Synergy Roll Hot Streak or Hot Hands. If you have Improved Sinister Strike, you might roll Sinister Strike, Eclipse Strike, Pistol Shot: the things that scale with Sinister Strike Modifiers and are therefore synergistic with Improved Sinister Strike.

Synergy Rolls can synergize from Abilities to Talents and Talents to Abilities. They don’t go from talents to talents or abilities to abilities.

Synergy Rolls won't prioritize absolutely unusable abilities or talents that are gated behind stance. No feral ability synergies without the required feral form. They also recognize your role (e.g., healer or DPS) to avoid granting unsuitable talent synergies

If you don’t like any of these occasional synergies, just unlearn it! You’ll be protected from seeing it again for a large number of future synergy rolls. You also never run out of synergies to roll, they just have a chance to happen, so don't worry about them being wasted!

These are occasional enough that they never spam you with things you may not want, but they help connect the dots of your build. 

Chapter 2 video and article release on the 26th and many more changes will be posted soon! Changes for Chapter 2 will be rolled out over the following week.