Hey folks, this is Librarian Husky. It’s been a busy week in World of Warcraft. Quite a lot of classes will see some big buffs next week, with certain abilities seeing buffs of up to 120%. So, they’ll be kicking out a good chunk more damage for sure.

Weekly World of Warcraft News Update

There have been some updates to the new belt coming in patch 117, which makes it even more powerful. We have more information about what kind of add-ons the dev team wants to restrict or disable. And that might be happening a bit sooner than we anticipated. And we’re also going to go over all of the masks that you can only get in Stormwind, so you should grab those before the map rotates with the weekly reset.

Let’s kick things off this week with the round of class buffs and balance changes that’ll come through with the next weekly reset. To start with, augmentation’s previous tier set bonuses from the Narobar Palace raid have been nerfed. I guess the most recent round of buffs made the old tier set a little too good to ignore, so that’s been nerfed down to encourage players to equip higher item level pieces of gear and the newer season 2 set bonuses.

Preservation Evokers and Hunters Updates

Preservation evokers have some nice buffs to look forward to, including a 4% buff to all of their healing spells and abilities. On top of that, living flame healing has been increased by 30%. Spirit Bloom healing will see a 20% buff, and Ekko’s base healing is being doubled, though that only affects the raw healing from the echo spell and doesn’t increase how powerful the copied spell will be. So, preservation might see a bit more play with these buffs in place.

Hunters made the list this week, and survival has a couple of quick buffs for their AoE potential. Explosive shot damage has been increased by 15%, and fury of the eagle damage is being buffed up by 25%. That’s all for the hunters this week. Frost mages join the buff club this week. They’re going to get a 3% damage buff across the board. Nothing too crazy, but at least it’s better than nerfs or nothing at all. When you take a peek at Warcraft logs, I can’t help but feel frost mage probably needs a bit more than a 3% buff to get them out of that dead last spot. Though, holy paladins will also see a handful of buffs this week, specifically for the lightsmith hero talent tree. Blessing of the Forge healing has been increased by 15%, and hammer and anvil healing has been increased by 20%.

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It seems like the dev team are making smaller adjustments for the most part this week, which isn’t too surprising. They probably want to save any big changes for the next patch. Moving on, Shadow Priests will see some decent buffs this week, too. The amount of damage that Psychic Link copies has been buffed yet again, this time up to 35%.

Upcoming Class Changes in the Next Patch

So, you’re going to have more AOE and cleave potential after these buffs come through. Halo damage is also going to see a 30% buff. And voidweavers and tropic rift damage is also being increased by 12%. So, shadow priests should be doing a bit more damage next week.

Next up, we have the rogues. And it’s super quick and easy. It’s just a 5% buff to all of sub rogues damage and abilities. Sub hasn’t been doing all too well recently, so hopefully this buff brings them a bit more in line with other classes and specs.

The shamans are up next, and restoration will see a lot of buffs for their farrier hero talent tree. Elemental reverb now increases Riptide healing by 20% up from 10%. Maelstrom Supremacy now increases the healing of various abilities by 25% up from 15%. Offering from beyond now reduces the cooldown of Riptide by 3 seconds, up from two. Primordial capacity increases your max mana by 10% up from 5%, and then hydro bubble absorption was increased by 25%, and it’s going to last 5 seconds longer.

Now the warlocks haven’t been left out. Destruction is going to see quite a few buffs to their diabolist hero talent tree heading into next week. Ruin nation damage has been increased by 35%. Wicked cleave, chaos salvo, and fellseker damage are all been increased by 15%. And then gloom of Nathresera was buffed up to 7% as well.

And then we round things out with the warriors as we usually do. They’re going to see quite a few big buffs this week. For arms, whirlwind damage will see a 100% increase. And then for fury, whirlwind is getting buffed up by 120%, thunderclap damage has been increased by 25%. Odin’s fury damage is up 30%. And then thunderblast damage will see a 25% damage buff as well. So, both DPS warriors should do some more AoE damage next week with Fury getting a little bit more love.

That’s all for this week’s round of class buffs and balance tuning changes. Now, all of these updates are scheduled to go live with the next weekly reset, which will be on May 27th, so we don’t have to wait very long for these buffs to come through.

Now, another interesting change this week came through on the patch 117 PTR. The new belt slot item, the durable information storage container, or disc for short, has been updated to now also provide stamina, and it will also have a gem socket right from the get-go. So, you don’t have to worry about losing a bunch of health when this item becomes available in the next patch, or having to get another socket item from your great vault to replace the gem slot you might be losing.

Understanding the New Belt and Its Effects

This just makes the belt even more powerful and reduces the fringe cases where it might not have been worth collecting or equipping this new item. If you haven’t seen this belt yet, it starts at item level 684 and can be upgraded even further. So, it’s going to be like the Cersei Cirlet ring where it will probably be the highest item level piece of gear we can get our hands on for the rest of season 2. And it may be powerful enough to remain useful at least partway into season 3.

It’s all going to depend on the special effects and how the dev team balances them. Because even though the belt now has primary stats, stamina, and a socket, it doesn’t have any secondary stats on it. So, it’s going to be a balancing act between the damage or throughput you would get from secondary stats versus the special procs.

Now, what is pretty cool about this belt is that you’ll have nine different effects to choose from. Each effect is hidden away in a specific delve, so you’ll need to clear through the delves if you want to collect new discs and effects for your belt. Charged bolts is a single target damage proc. Quarterizing bolts is a smart healing proc. Critical chain is a stacking crit buff. Spark burst is a haste proc. Static burst that grants you a big verse buff that is reduced for every spell or ability you use. Electric current is a constant mastery buff that gets bigger and smaller as you stay in combat. Charge touched is another healing proc. Energy shield is an absorb shield that deals damage when it expires. And then Charged crystal is an AoE split damage proc.

So, there’s quite a variety of discs and effects to collect and use with this belt, but I’m sure some of them will end up being much better than the others depending on how the balancing and numbers go. Now, the numbers in these previews obviously aren’t accurate. So, take those with a massive grain of salt. They’re just not relevant at all really, but you can get a general idea of the kinds of effects we’ll be able to pick up and choose between. So, that’s going to be really cool.

This week also continues the cartel chip acquisition quests. You can pick up the weekly in the exact same location and it requires the same stuff to complete. Kill four bosses in the liberation of undermine raid on any difficulty or clear four mythic dungeons. That will earn you one more chip to put towards your next vendor item. At this point, it is going to take three weeks of quests to get another item and we’ll be able to collect up to nine chips total per character.

So, if you thought we’d be getting three chips this week and therefore a new item every week, I’m afraid you’re going to be quite disappointed. The next six cartel chips are spread over the next six weeks, so you’ll have to keep up with these quests and complete them every week if you want to buy your three vendor items as quickly as possible.

Developer Interviews and Add-on Restrictions

Now, in other news, there were some interesting developer interviews this week, and one interview with Ian delved into the problem of add-ons and how much they can do. From this interview, we’ve learned quite a lot about the dev team’s tentative plans for how to restrict add-ons in the future and when we could see some combat add-ons completely disabled.

To start with, they clearly pointed out the add-ons that they don’t really care that much about. Quest helpers, gathering add-ons, role-playing add-ons, auction house stuff, or any add-ons that just focus on customization aren’t really of any concern. I doubt we’ll see any changes to add-ons that fall into any of those categories. The end goal seems to be for there to be zero add-ons that are considered required or needed to play the game at a decent level, and any functionality that is required should be part of the base UI just like the rotation assistant and the cooldown manager that have been added most recently.

The functionality or add-ons that might be disabled include anything tracking incoming heals, tracking group abilities or other player cooldowns. So, you won’t be able to keep track of when your party is using their defensives or utility spells. And this is also going to apply to PvP. You might still be able to see which classes you are facing in any given arena match, but you won’t be able to track what cooldowns anyone has used. You won’t be able to track specialized buffs or debuffs, and changing your name plates based on conditional logic like buffs or debuffs will probably be disabled as well.

But in addition to those changes, the dev team wants to ensure that the base UI improves at the same time. So, if incoming heals are really needed and important to track, that should be part of the base UI, and they’re not relying on an add-on to provide that extra information. Any bosses where a tank swap is required should highlight that better so it’s more obvious when you should perform said tank swap, and then stun and crowd control diminishing returns should be made more visible as well, and important mechanics in general should just be better telegraphed so you don’t need an add-on to tell you that something bad is happening.

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We could also see fewer ground-based abilities and swirls that keep you moving constantly. They pointed out that casters have a much harder time in some endgame encounters simply due to the fact that classes and specs themselves just aren’t designed with constant movement in mind. We should also see fewer interrupts or required kicks. So, it looks like the dev team wants to make the game easier or simpler overall, but the constant add-ons arms race has prevented that so far. Curiously, the dev team seem focused on a success and failure rate of certain types of content and encounters and using that to gauge how complicated or difficult they should make content. Apparently, the success and failure rate hasn’t really changed that much over the years, but due to players getting better and craftier with things like add-ons, the overall complexity of encounters has had to increase to maintain that targeted success or failure rate.

If they do kind of disarm add-ons and start disabling stuff and players then have to actually deal with all of the mechanics organically and by themselves, we could see encounters become simpler or easier to understand just to keep those success rates steady. Another very interesting takeaway from this interview is that the dev team are also considering adding in customizable and shareable strings for the rotation assistant, which means you wouldn’t be relying on the dev team to update the theory crafting and functionality of the assistant to keep up to date with the balance tuning changes or talent adjustments.

This could also allow for a simpler rotation to use with a single button assistant, which may perform better when compared to some other complicated rotations that maybe have timed buffs or abilities. This could be really interesting and would let you take full control over how to use the rotation assistant and single button rotation features.

When could we start to see these changes to add-ons and what they can do? Well, we definitely won’t lose access to combat log or aura hooks in patches 11.7 or 11.2. So, the status quo will remain until at least 11.2.5. So part of 1125 could be moving us closer to a World of Warcraft without as many add-ons or at least starting to restrict their functionality. But one very key point that Ian made, and I can’t really stress and emphasize this enough, is that before they remove the ability for add-ons to work, they would first narrow the gap between what we have baseline and then things like weak auras.

Implications of Add-on Restrictions on Gameplay

The restrictions on add-ons proposed by the dev team could significantly alter the gameplay experience for players. By targeting specific functionalities that add-ons provide, such as tracking incoming heals, group abilities, or player cooldowns, the developers aim to shift the reliance from external tools to the base UI. This move is intended to streamline gameplay and make essential information more readily available without the need for additional add-ons.

Moreover, the focus on improving the base UI to better convey critical mechanics like tank swaps, crowd control effects, and boss abilities signals a desire to enhance in-game clarity and reduce the reliance on third-party modifications for gameplay optimization. The potential simplification of encounters and rotations, coupled with the introduction of customizable rotation strings, suggests a shift towards a more intuitive and accessible gameplay experience for all players.

While these changes may lead to a reduction in the complexity of encounters and rotations, the dev team’s strategic approach to balancing success rates and content difficulty hints at a broader objective of maintaining engagement and challenge levels within the game. By reevaluating the role of add-ons and emphasizing organic engagement with gameplay mechanics, the developers aim to cultivate a more immersive and skill-based gaming environment that encourages players to adapt and strategize independently.

The gradual implementation of add-on restrictions, starting with patches like 11.2.5, underscores the careful consideration and planning behind these proposed changes. As players anticipate the evolution of add-on functionality and the potential impact on their gameplay experience, the emphasis on bridging the gap between baseline features and external tools remains a key aspect of the development roadmap. With a focus on enhancing the core gameplay experience and promoting player agency in combat and rotation mechanics, these forthcoming changes reflect a broader vision for a more refined and engaging World of Warcraft experience.

Understanding the Game Update Changes

The development team will introduce their own versions of features like boss timers or damage meters to replace add-ons gradually. This process ensures that Players won’t face sudden removal of functionalities. Players will receive prior notice before any add-ons are disabled. The updates aim to make the game healthier in the long run by reducing reliance on external tools during mythic raid fights. Simplifying mechanics to promote natural and organic reactions can enhance the PvE experience, making content more accessible and enjoyable. Additionally, collecting masks in Stormwind Horrific Vision maps before transitioning to Ogramar is essential. There are eight masks available in total, some obtainable in either map while others are exclusive to one. To maximize mask collection, players must strategically clear specific objectives with active masks to unlock powerful enhancements.

Obtaining Masks in Horrific Visions

To acquire the Mask of Pain, players must clear the Old Town objective in Stormwind with at least one mask active. The Mask of Dark Imagination is obtained by clearing the mage quarter under similar conditions. The Mask of Vengeance is easily acquired by Defeating cultists in a specific location with an active mask. For the final mask, players need to visit both Stormwind and Ogramar visions with an active mask, triggering the appearance of Hogger by interacting with a wanted poster outside the mage quarter in Stormwind. Defeating Hogger and obtaining the nemesis shard is the initial step towards unlocking the Mask of the Nemesis in the subsequent week’s Ogramar vision.

World of Warcraft Masks Overview

Note that the very first mask you can obtain out of all of them is from clearing all objectives and killing the main boss in a single run. So, you’ll have to do that before you can start farming for the other individual masks. Any other mask that hasn’t been mentioned can be picked up in either vision map. There isn’t really a time limit on those additional masks. It’s recommended to focus on the ones mentioned earlier to avoid waiting another week for the map to rotate again.

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