Last week, Blizzard changed direct damage Embellishments such as Roiling Shadowflame to no longer interact with certain class-specific spells and abilities such as Fiery Demise, which ever since Battle for Azeroth have been intended to only interact with other class spells and abilities. In doing so, however, they inadvertently caused those Embellishments to no longer benefit from Versatility, which resulted in an even greater nerf to their value. Today’s hotfix reverts that change, instead adjusting a handful of class abilities to no longer affect Embellishments, while allowing the Embellishments to once again benefit from Versatility.
On a technical level, most class-specific damage modifiers like cooldowns and passive talents use what is called a whitelist to specify the spells and abilities that they affect. For example, the Spell Details under Avatar specifically cite several effects alongside their associated spells. Not everything worked this way though – some abilities such as Elemental Weapons affect specific schools of magic, causing them to also benefit outside sources of damage such as primordial gems, trinkets, and embellishments. With today’s hotfix, more (though not yet all) of these abilities are being converted to use whitelists so that some specializations will no longer gain unintended bonuses that others do not.
Hotfixes
May 5, 2023 Achievements
- The achievement Proof of Myrrit no longer requires the quest “Brand New Digs.”
Classes
- Developers’ notes: Earlier this week, we changed Embellishments so that they did not scale with class talents, abilities, and set bonuses. We’ve decided to revert that change, and we’re now making updates to class abilities that unintentionally boosted the damage of non-class effects such as Embellishments and trinkets.
- Demon Hunter
Vengeance
Fiery Demise now affects only Demon Hunter class damage, and does not affect trinket or item damage, or Fire damage dealt by other casters.
Druid
Rogue
Outlaw
- Fixed a bug that prevented Lethality’s critical damage bonus from affecting Outlaw’s Sinister Strike attacks.
Warlock
Dragonriding and Mounts
- Fixed an issue where some mount riding animations were playing incorrectly.
Items and Rewards
- The item awarding the pet Diamondshell no longer gives an error saying the spell is not available, and now correctly awards the pet.
- The toy “Earpieces of Tranquil Focus” now costs 1 copper (was 50 gold).
Developers’ notes: This toy eliminates many musical and vocal projections of characters around the player. This toy can be purchased from Craggle Wobbletop in Stormwind, Blax Bottlerocket in Orgimmar, Jepetto Joybuzz or his clockwork assistant in Dalaran (either), and Kazbala in Talador.
Player versus Player
Trading Post
- Adjusted the sheathing position for Tiercel’s Wing.
Quests
- Fixed an issue that prevents players from picking up “A Room Without a View.” Rupert will now offer to take you to the vault even if you don’t have the quest.
