Another round of WoW Classic Season of Discovery hotfixes have been deployed on live servers, and these changes are bringing massive updates to nearly every class in the game, as well as plenty of new additions made to WoW SoD in the season’s third phase.
In a blue post shared by the WoW devs on April 8, tuning changes were revealed for plenty of the new SoD phase’s runes, items, and encounters. Alterations were made specifically to the Sunken Temple raid, as well as the new Nightmare Incursion world event. Items such as the turbulent and extremely popular Darkmoon Card: Sandstorm were also hit with necessary balance changes.
In total, April 8’s WoW SoD patch notes are some of the most extensive the young season has seen to date. Here are all of the changes that came to WoW SoD in the game’s latest hotfix update.
WoW Classic SoD update: Full WoW Season of Discovery patch notes for April 8
General fixes
- Nightmare armaments created outside the Engineering and Blacksmithing professions will no longer require a Blacksmith Hammer in your inventory.
- Blackrock Depths Fireguard Destroyer mobs’ levels adjusted.
- Loganaar, the Druid trainer in Moonglade, will no longer disappear at random.
WoW SoD class tuning hotfixes
Priest
- Void Zone will now lock you out of casting Shadow spells if interrupted. The spell also no longer affects the casting time on your wand’s attacks.
Mage
- Balefire Bolt hotfixed to properly interact with other spells, including Ignite, Arcane Blast, Combustion, and Clearcasting.
- You will lose stacks of Molten Armor when swapping out the rune.
- Rank six of the Conjure Water spell now creates a full 20-stack of water.
Warlock
- Felguard will now cast Cleave even in single-target scenarios.
- Swapping out the Summon Felguard rune will cause you to now lose Demonic Sacrifice buffs.
Druid
- Fury of Stormrage rune fixed to no longer consume Clearcasting.
- Rumsey Rum is no longer guaranteed to proc Omen of Clarity.
Rogue
- Fixed bugs surrounding Honor Among Thieves and its interactions with combo points, as well as allies’ PvP-flagged status.
- Resolved an interaction between Carnage and rank four of Rupture.
Warrior
- Shield Slam now generates the correct amount of threat (200 percent).
- Devastate now deals the correct amount of weapon damage (150 percent).
Shaman
- Tidal Waves will now always interact properly with Healing Wave
Item changes
- Darkmoon Card: Sandstorm altered to no longer proc on every instant cast spell.
- “Persists through death” effect added to Sunken Temple flasks.
- The Tenacity Chain helmet is now properly listed as a Mail armor class item instead of Leather.
- Breadth of the Beast is now a unique item.
- Membrane of Dark Neurosis (leatherworking changed to grant flat Spell Hit Chance instead of Spirit, as well as a proc that grants Spell Power instead of Haste.
Sunken Temple raid changes
- HP pool of the Avatar of Hakkar has been reduced by 35 percent.
- Eranikus will spawn fewer adds in all phases, making the fight more manageable.
- Additionally, you will no longer be able to walk along the edges of Eranikus’ boss room.
- Festering Rotslime will no longer randomly despawn and cause the raid to remain in a state of combat.
Nightmare Incursion adjustments
- Nightmare Incursion quests will grant less experience moving forward.
- Nightmare Incursion quests at level 50 will now grant more reputation with the Emerald Wardens.
- Hinterlands Nightmare Incursion: Unstable Wisp nerfed
- Nightmare Incursion quest objectives now have multiple spawn locations, making them easier to complete.
Biggest changes and key takeaways from WoW SoD’s April 8 update
Apart from the laundry list of class tuning changes that have been implemented in the latest update, we’re finding that it’s the systems updates that will be most impactful moving forward. The change to Nightmare Incursion XP gains is massive, considering many players during the first week of the new phase used Nightmare Incursions to steadily gain experience from levels 40 to 50. The new world event quickly became the best way to level in WoW Sod, but in the future, players might have to resort to the old ways of dungeon grinding and questing to catch alts up to speed.
Additionally, changes to the Sunken Temple should make the raid much easier to complete, especially for pick-up groups. The general consensus surrounding Sunken Temple is that it’s a marginally harder raid than Blackfathom Deeps or Gnomeregan from the season’s previous phases, and while this is to be expected as we near the traditional WoW level cap of 60 in SoD, the tuning changes made today should bring the Sunken Temple more in line with what players expect out of a SoD raid’s difficulty.
