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Midnight Alpha Test Development Notes

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ notes: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

Level 80 Character Template
Maximum Level: 83

ZONE

Eversong Woods

STORY AND QUESTS

Level-up Campaign
Local Stories
Arator Campaign
Arcantina: Visitor Quest 1
- Developers’ notes: Accessible after the completion of the Arator Campaign.

WELCOME HOME

When you login, you’ll be given a quest “A House for You” which will lead you to your faction’s Neighborhood, introduce the Steward, and take you on a tour of the Neighborhood, and ultimately direct you to buy your house.

Please note, the house cost is not final and assuming you used a template character, you’ll have plenty of gold to afford it.

Once you have a house, start building! You’ll be able to find a variety of decorations on vendors, professions, and throughout the world and use them to make your house a home. Lay out your rooms and expand into a spooky basement or lofty attic. Explore the Neighborhood and see what’s hidden around the corner or say hi to your neighbors.

Please leave any feedback on the feature in the Housing feedback thread.

What to Expect Going Forward

During Alpha and Beta, we’ll be adding a ton more content and functionality to Housing, including:

Moving your house will become possible. Please be especially careful of your choice since it is not possible to change right now.
Exterior decoration (being able to place decor outside) AND exterior customization (being able to change the outside appearance of your house) will both be enabled.
House exteriors will also be able to upgrade their visual size
Charter Neighborhoods will be enabled allowing arbitrary groups of players to have a private neighborhood. In the meantime, Guilds can create their own neighborhoods to test.
Endeavors will be turned on, allowing your Neighborhood to work together to achieve rewards and welcome new NPCs to town.
Social visiting will be enabled, allowing friends, neighbors, party members, and guild mates to easily visit each other.
Lumber is very much a work in progress and will be getting a lot of updates, polish, and balancing.
We’ll be adding tons of new decorations, profession recipes, neighborhood activities, and more content.

Known Issues

There are a number of things we know about already and are actively working on and want you to be aware of ahead of time.

Walking towards another player’s doorstep can sometimes cause a crash. Focus on decorating your own home for now.
Entering other players’ houses will sometimes take a VERY long time.
When visiting other players, refreshing the UI list of all their visitable houses can sometimes take a very long time to load.
As a quick headsup, Dyes are only available via Inscription and Alchemy (and can be placed on the Auction House) so if you’re looking to pretty things up, start there.
For Alpha, all room placement costs are intentionally set low to enable better testing. Costs will increase to their intended amount during beta and release.
Private Neighborhoods with names longer than 50+ characters will cause disconnects and crashes. Be brief!
If you drag decor across room boundaries, a crash can sometimes occur. Put the decor away in your chest and take it out in the target room to avoid this.
If you have a LOT of decor in a single room and add more, a crash may take place.
Customizing rooms will always have the “Vaulted” ceiling type option available, though it only works on some room types.
Houses that are owned by other players will occasionally display the For Sale sign asset even though they’re not for sale.
You’ll likely encounter a variety of LUA errors. It’s fine to ignore these, but occasionally you may have to relog or reload your UI.
There are some visual issues with various pieces of decor, rooms, and customizations.

DUNGEONS AND RAID

Windrunner Spire
Murder Row
March on Quel’Danas
- Belo’ren, Child of Al’ar
- Developers’ notes: Speak to Nexus-Lord Donjon Rade IX in Silvermoon City, Orgrimmar, or Stormwind to be summoned to this raid encounter to test Boss Timelines, class updates, items, Boss Alerts when it becomes available, and other updates. This encounter will be removed in a future Alpha build.

DELVES

Collegiate Calamity
Parhelion Plaza
The Darkway
New delve companion: Valeera Sanguinar

STAT SQUISH

Starting in Public Alpha 1, we’ve squished numbers across the board. Like previous squishes, we are reducing values across the board, including player and creature health, damage, healing, item level, and stats on items. This squish will not affect player character levels.
- For players logging into Public Alpha, the new character templates will reflect the expected player power from levels 80-90.
- Known issues: Item previews in the Quest Rewards pane can show pre-squished item levels. This is just a display issue, the item will be set to the correct squished item level when it is created.
Developers’ notes: We welcome your feedback as we continue to work on this feature. While the squish has been applied across the game, it’s possible some items or effects may have escaped having been squished or have been squished too harshly. Legacy content scaling has also been adjusted to compensate for the squish. Please let us know if you encounter any issues with these or other scaling content.

COMBAT APPROACHABILITY IN MIDNIGHT

With Midnight, we aim to make gameplay clearer and easier to understand, so the path to improvement is more apparent for players at every skill level, while maintaining the depth of mastery that WoW offers.

We are updating every class specialization with an eye towards approachability by reducing complexity and making gameplay more intuitive. We are beginning by focusing on what makes each specialization unique and designing gameplay that matches their theme, so your character’s personality and style are reflected in how you play. Our goal is for the most appealing, visible elements of your spec to be what matter most in gameplay. That often means managing resources, tracking a few key buffs and debuffs, using ability charges strategically, and responding to important triggered effects (also known as “procs”).

We want to ensure that players have all the necessary information to play a spec with clearly visible prompts and indicators in the user interface. This can include changing the design of complex abilities or reducing the number of buffs or debuffs that can be active, so it’s easier to pick out the most essential information on enemy nameplates or in the Cooldown Manager.

We are also reviewing the amount of concentration or “cognitive load” required to play each spec. Cognitive load encompasses tasks such as keeping track of active auras, parsing conditions to choose the most effective ability in a given moment, or remembering long sequences of abilities. Some specs will demand more cognitive load than others by design. Keeping track of damage over time effects requires concentration, but is also a big part of the appeal of specs like Affliction, Feral, and Assassination! However, we are reviewing all specs for areas where concentration demands are excessive, unclear, or don’t serve enjoyable gameplay.

Ultimately, our goal is that once every spec has all its new class talent points, Hero Talents, and Apex Talents, it has what we feel is a manageable, fun, and appropriately challenging level of complexity.

Visit the Developer Insight: Combat for Everyone in Midnight article for an in-depth look on these changes. And for more details on the combat approachability changes to healing and PvP, check out their forum threads: Healing Changes in Midnight and PvP Changes in Midnight.

DIMINISHING RETURNS

Developers’ notes: We are making some adjustments to how diminishing returns work in World of Warcraft. “Diminishing returns” refers to the system that reduces the duration of crowd control effects if they are used repeatedly against the same target. In order to make crowd control less frustrating in PvP, players will now become immune after 2 applications of crowd control from the same category (ex. after being stunned twice, you are now immune). We felt that very low duration crowd controls were making it hard to cast spells and generally felt excessive. For PvE, we are removing the immunity after 3 stuns. Our primary goal here is to remove the need to track diminishing returns state on enemies. Instead of enforcing a hidden and complex system to reduce effectiveness of stuns, we are doing a pass on classes and making sure the amount of stuns and their durations are appropriate for combat.
Diminishing return categories will reset after 16 seconds (was 18 seconds).
Creatures will no longer be immune to stun effects after 3 applications of the effect. The duration of the stun effect will continue to diminish in half upon each application, until they reach 1/16th duration, where it will remain until 16 seconds have passed.
In PvP combat, players will be fully immune to a crowd control category after 2 casts (was 3).

CLASSES

The Global Interrupt duration has been increased:
- Developers’ notes: We would like players to have more effective tools against caster enemies, particularly in dungeons. To that end, we are increasing interrupt durations across the board in PvE content.
- Death Knight
  - Mind Freeze interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Demon Hunter
  - Disrupt interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Druid
  - Skull Bash interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Balance
    - Solar Beam interrupt increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Evoker
  - Quell interrupt duration increased to 6 seconds (was 4 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Hunter
  - Beast Mastery and Marksmanship
    - Counter Shot interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Survival
    - Muzzle interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Mage
  - Counterspell interrupt duration increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Monk
  - Spear Hand Strike interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Paladin
  - Rebuke interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Priest
  - Shadow
    - Silence duration increased to 5 seconds (was 4 seconds) and interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds in non-PvP combat (was 3 seconds).
    - Silence duration increased to 4 seconds in PvP combat (was 3 seconds).
- Rogue
  - Kick interrupt duration increased to 6 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Shaman
  - Wind Shear interrupt duration increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Warlock
  - Spell Lock interrupt duration increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Demonology
    - Axe Toss interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Warrior
  - Pummel interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
DEATH KNIGHT
- Class
  - Death Strike Heal reduced to 20% of all damage taken in the last 5 seconds (was 25%).
  - Death and Decay damage increased by 130%.
  - Unholy Endurance now reduces the cooldown of Lichborne by 30 seconds (was reduces damage taken).
  - Sacrificial Pact has been removed.
- Hero Talents
  - Deathbringer
    - New Talent: Frigid Hunger – Upon exploding, Reaper’s Mark increases your critical strike chance by 10% for 8 seconds.
    - New Talent: Deathly Blows
      - Frost: Frost Strike damage increased by 5%. Glacial Advance damage increased by 5%.
      - Blood: Death Strike damage increased by 5%.
    - New Talent: Echoing Fury
      - Frost: Reaper’s Mark deals 5% increased damage. Casting Frostwyrm’s Fury grants 2 stacks of Exterminate with 100% first scythe and 100% second scythe effectiveness.
      - Blood: Reaper’s Mark deals 5% increased damage. Casting Dancing Rune Weapon grants 1 stack of Exterminate with 75% first scythe and 75% second scythe effectiveness.
  - Rider of the Apocalypse
    - New Talent: Ride or Die!
      - Unholy: Dark Transformation summons forth Whitemane for 6 seconds.
      - Frost: Pillar of Frost summons forth Trollbane for 6 seconds.
    - New Talent: Let Terror Reign
      - Unholy: Casting Death Coil or Epidemic orders Whitemane to cast her Death Coil or Epidemic alongside you at 125% effectiveness.
      - Frost: Casting Obliterate or Frostscythe orders Trollbane to cast his Obliterate or Frostscythe alongside you at 100% effectiveness.
    - New Talent: Unholy Armaments
      - The abilities that Horsemen cast deal 5% increased damage.
  - San’layn
    - New Talent: Thrill of Blood – Essence of the Blood Queen additionally increases your Mastery by 0.2% per stack.
    - New Talent: Unending Misery – Infliction of Sorrow extends the duration of your disease by an additional 3 seconds (Unholy)/4 seconds (Blood) on your main target.
    - New Talent: Transfusion – Vampiric Strike increases the damage of your permanent Ghoul/Dancing Rune Weapons by 10% for 8 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap.
    - Infliction of Sorrow now consumes 50% of the Plagues to deal 100% of that amount of damage.
- Blood
  - *Developers’ notes: Going into Midnight we had a few pain points with Blood Death Knights that we are looking to address. On initial pull, Blood has an incredibly long ramp up time to both get their defensives rolling but also their offensive power. The main culprit is due to how we turned Boneshield into a damage throughput resource because of the existence of Shattering Bone and Insatiable Blade. Going into Midnight we have removed Shattering Bone and re-distributed its power into Blood’s baseline damage abilities for a more consistent throughput that doesn’t require all the hoops to jump through to start dealing damage. On the topic of Boneshield, we’ve also reduced the number of abilities that deduct from it such as Tombstone and Bonestorm. As a tank you have a lot of things to consider in your role and adding what was essentially a third resource to spend felt like it was slightly too much. Not to say we can’t explore this design in the future, but we will need to be much more cautious and deliberate with these ability designs to ensure its not encroaching on the already existing resource system of Death Knights.*The other notable change for Blood is focused on making them more reliable in high end Mythic+ keys. Blood historically (outside of the very strong Sepulcher of the First Ones tier set) has been great at low to mid-level keys but started to fall off at higher end keys where their Death Strike healing can’t overcome the damage they start to take. To alleviate some of this we’ve made a pass on Death Strike and all its modifiers to reduce its overall healing but at the same time we’ve re-distributed that power into their baseline defensives, talents, and Boneshield. The goal being to make their damage intake a little more predictable at higher keys and prevent them from “falling over” before they can start to get their other defensives rolling. We love that Blood has carved a niche for itself as the self-sufficient tank and we don’t want that to change. We look forward to hearing your feedback to the above changes as well as the other changes not mentioned as we continue into Alpha and beyond.
  - Apex Talents: Dance of Midnight
    - While Dancing Rune Weapon is active, when you parry you have a chance to make your next Heart Strike free and deal 150% increased damage.
    - For each Dancing Rune Weapon active your damage is increased by 4/8% and your damage taken is reduced by 2/4%.
    - When you consume a Rune you have a chance to call a Dancing Rune Weapon to your aid for 6 seconds.
  - New Talent: Deadly Reach – Death Strike hits an additional 2 enemies.
  - New Talent: Lifeblood – Death Strike heals for an additional 20% of its healing over 5 seconds.
  - New Talent: Bloodmist – When you cast Dancing Rune Weapon, you become enveloped in a blood mist that surrounds you for 8 seconds, increasing your Parry by 5%. Deals Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies within 10 yards. Every time it deals damage you gain 2 Runic Power, up to a maximum of 10 Runic Power. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  - New Talent: Boiling Point – Heart Strike has a chance to make your next Blood Boil empowered, dealing 50% increased damage, and echoing after 3 seconds.
  - New Talent: Plague Infusion – Your Blood Plague critical hits have a chance to reduce the cooldown of your Blood Boil by 0.25 seconds.
  - New Talent: Sanguinary Burst – When Blood Mist ends it deals Shadow damage to 8 nearby enemies, healing you for 15% of the damage dealt. The damage is increased by 2% for every 1 Runic Power spent while Blood Mist was active.
  - Consumption has been redesigned and is now an Empower ability – Empower the runes in your weapon, reducing the damage you take over the duration and unleashing a devastating attack that deals Shadow damage and consumes up to 75% of your Blood Plague instantly from enemies in front of you.
  - Insatiable Blade has been updated – Dancing Rune Weapon’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds and now generates 5 Bone Shield charges.
  - Heartbreaker no longer grants extra Runic Power from Dancing Rune Weapons.
  - Abomination Limb is now available as a choice node with Gorefiend’s Grasp. No longer deals damage.
  - Gorefiends Grasp cooldown reduced by 30 seconds and it now silences enemies for 3 seconds.
  - Everlasting Bond duration increase reduced to 4 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  - Voracious now increases Death Strike Healing by 5% (was 15%).
  - Bone Shield Armor increased by 25%.
  - Improved Bone Shield now also increases the maximum stacks of Bone Shield by 2.
  - Blood Fortification now also increases your base Armor by 35%.
  - Carnage no longer affects Blooddrinker.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Blooddrinker
    - Blood Tap
    - Bonestorm
    - Heartrend
    - Mark of Blood
    - Ossified Vitriol
    - Reinforced Bones
    - Rune Tap
    - Shattering Bone
    - Tightening Grasp
    - Tombstone
- Frost
  - Developers’ notes: In Midnight, we are looking to iterate on the Ghosts of K’aresh Frost Death Knight rework by implementing better tuning knobs that allow for the two prominent builds, Frostbane and Breath of Sindragosa, to be able to compete in single target situations. We’re also updating Obliterate to be partially dealing Frost damage, so that we can fine tune the throughput difference between casting it with Killing Machine or without where we believe is needed.
  - Apex Talents: Chosen of Frostbrood
    - Frostwyrm’s Fury deals 100% increased damage to the first enemy it hits and grants you 15% Haste for 12 seconds.
    - Casting Frostwyrm’s Fury forward grants 25/50 Runic Power. Recalling it grants 1/2 Killing Machine stacks.
    - Frostwyrm’s Fury deals 100% increased damage. After the Frostwyrm flies away, you may cast Frostwyrm’s Fury again to recall it at 50% effectiveness.
  - Obliterate has been updated –
    - Two-Handed: A brutal attack that deals Physical and Frost damage.
    - Dual Wield: A brutal attack with both weapons that deals a total of Physical and Frost damage.
  - Shattering Blade now has an additional effect – When Frostbane consumes the Razorice stacks on your main target, it deals an additional 250% damage instead.
  - Empower Rune Weapon effect is now instant and no longer has a projectile.
- Unholy
  - Developers’ notes: In Midnight, our primary goal for Unholy Death Knight is to deliver fantasy and gameplay that truly embody what it means to be a master of disease and raising the dead. We found Festering Wound to be mechanically overbearing and decided to move away from it. We’re overhauling the core abilities of the spec to create a new rotation that interacts more deeply with your diseases and summoning powers.
    To deliver this vision, we’ve introduced a new type of summon called the Lesser Ghoul, placing it at the heart of Unholy’s baseline rotation. Festering Strike now grants a buff that empowers your next couple of Scourge Strikes to summon a Lesser Ghoul—instead of applying a debuff to a single enemy that needs to be spread and tracked throughout an encounter. We’re also updating Army of the Dead to summon these new Lesser Ghouls, and restoring it as Unholy’s primary cooldown by reducing its cooldown to 1.5 minutes.
    We recognize that simply having cool ways to summon armies of the dead doesn’t necessarily create meaningful gameplay. That led us to design a new Rune-spending ability called Putrefy—the third rotational partner alongside Festering Strike and Scourge Strike. With Putrefy, you’ll sacrifice your oldest summoned Lesser Ghoul to explode and deal Shadow damage to nearby enemies. We’ve intentionally placed Putrefy early in the specialization tree to enable further fun and meaningful interactions you can opt into. And for those wondering about targeting—don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Just press the button and enjoy the show as your Lesser Ghoul explodes spectacularly.
    Now that we’ve covered summoning, let’s talk diseases. In Midnight, we’re introducing a new single-target disease called Dread Plague, which will work alongside your AoE disease Virulent Plague. As with summoning, simply applying cool diseases isn’t enough—so we’re redefining some core abilities and bringing Runic Power spenders like Death Coil and Epidemic into the mix. Scourge Strike will now cause your diseases to inflict an additional tick of their periodic damage at a percentage of their effectiveness, while your Runic Power spenders will extend their durations. Extending disease duration becomes important because we’re also introducing a powerful disease consumption mechanic via a talent called Blightburst. When talented into Blightburst, the explosion effect of Putrefy will consume a significant portion of your diseases’ remaining duration and deal that amount of damage instantly.
    By leveraging the concepts of Lesser Ghoul and Putrefy, we aimed to unify the summoner and master-of-disease fantasies. We hope you’ll find all the other talents we introduced fun and engaging—especially the new Apex Talent, which we believe will fully immerse you in this redefinition of Unholy Death Knight.
  - Apex Talents: Forbidden Knowledge
    - Army of the Dead siphons the power of the fallen, transforming Death Coil and Epidemic into Necrotic Coil and Graveyard for 15 seconds.
      - Necrotic Coil: Unleash a vortex of necrotic energy and bone, dealing Physical damage up to 3 foes and Shadow damage to all pierced enemies. 20 Runic Power and uses half global cooldown.
      - Graveyard: The dead erupt beneath all foes with Virulent Plague, dealing Shadow damage and Shadow damage to enemies nearby. 20 Runic Power and uses half global cooldown.
    - Army of the Dead grants 20/40 Runic Power and causes your next 1/2 Scourge Strike to summon a Lesser Ghoul.
    - When you Putrefy a Lesser Ghoul or summon one with Scourge Strike, the duration of Forbidden Knowledge is increased by 1 second.
  - New Talent: Putrefy – Decay your oldest Lesser Ghoul under your command over 2 seconds to have them explode for Shadow damage to nearby enemies. Lesser Ghouls do not expire while decaying. Max 2 charges. 15 seconds recharge. 1 Rune cost.
  - New Talent: Ancient Runes – Each Rune consumed increases Strength by 2% for 20 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap.
  - Festering Strike has been redesigned – Slash the enemy for Physical damage and corrupt your weapon with blight, causing your next 3-4 Scourge Strikes to summon a Lesser Ghoul.
  - Scourge Strike has been redesigned – An unholy strike that deals Shadow damage and erupts your plagues on the target, dealing their damage an additional time at 35% effectiveness. Spreads Virulent Plague on the target to a nearby enemy. 30 yard range.
  - Outbreak has been updated – Inflicts the target with Dread Plague and Virulent Plague.
    - Dread Plague: A malicious plague that seeps into the soul of its host, dealing Shadow damage over 15 seconds. Can only be applied to 1 host at a time.
    - Virulent Plague: An infectious plague that spreads to all nearby enemies, dealing Shadow damage over 15 seconds.
  - New Talent: Outnumber – Lesser Ghouls serve you 4 seconds longer.
  - New Talent: March of Madness – Your lesser Ghouls deal 30% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Reanimation – Capstone - When you Putrefy a Lesser Ghoul, it has a 100% chance to reanimate as a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at your foes for 15 seconds. Additionally, Magus of the Dead spells deal 25% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Unholy Devotion – Putrefy now decays the Lesser Ghoul over 4 seconds, and causes it to go on an unholy frenzy, increasing their attack speed and damage by 150% until they explode.
  - New Talent: Blighted – Scourge Strike critical strikes causes your Dread and Virulent Plague to inflict their damage at 50% effectiveness instead.
  - New Talent: Rapid Variant – When an enemy afflicted by your Dread Plague dies, it erupts, dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies and infects the enemy with the lowest health remaining with your plagues. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
  - New Talent: Festering Corruption – Runic Corruption now increases your Rune regeneration rate by 125%.
  - New Talent: Scourging – Scourge Strike now instead causes your Dread and Virulent Plague to erupt for the damage they would inflict over 3/5 seconds at 35% effectiveness.
  - New Talent: Blightfall – All diseases deal 20% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Putrid Echoes – Replaces Improved Death Coil. Putrefy damage is increased by 50% and it now deals damage split between enemies it hits. Each additional enemy struck increases the damage of Putrefy by 50%.
  - New Talent: Reanimation – Replaces Forbidden Knowledge. When you Putrefy a Lesser Ghoul, it has a 100% chance to reanimate as a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at foes for 15 seconds. Additionally, Magus of the Dead spells deal 25% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Blightburst – The explosion effect of Putrefy consumes 6 seconds from your plagues on all enemies hit, dealing 100% of the damage they would deal over that time instantly.
  - Clawing Shadows has been redesigned – Now a passive effect. Shadows guide your strikes, increasing the damage of your Scourge Strike by 25%, and causing it to grant you Clawing Shadows up to 4 times. For each stack of Clawing Shadows, your Scourge Strike chains to an additional enemy. Each subsequent chain deals 25% reduced damage.
  - Cleaving Strikes has been redesigned – Scourge Strike and Festering Strike deal 10% increased damage.
  - Sudden Doom has been redesigned – Dread Plague has a 35% chance to exhilarate, making your next Death Coil or Epidemic cost no Runic Power and deal 35% increased damage.
  - Doomed Bidding has been updated – Consuming Sudden Doom summons forth a lesser Ghoul to assist you for 8 seconds. Moved to the first gate in the talent tree.
  - Harbinger of Doom has been updated – Sudden Doom triggers 30% more often and can accumulate up to 2 charges.
  - Superstrain has been updated – Dread Plague has a chance to grant 4 Runic Power. No longer a capstone talent.
  - Unholy Aura has been updated – Each lesser Ghoul you have under your command grants 0.5%/1% Mastery. Whenever you Putrefy a Lesser Ghoul, you gain 3%/5% Haste for 15 seconds.
  - Reaping has been updated – Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, and Death Coil deal 30% more damage to enemies below 35% health.
  - Infected Claws has been updated – Ghouls have a chance to sicken foes, dealing Shadow damage over 12 seconds. If this effect is reapplied, any remaining damage is added to the new effect.
  - Dark Transformation has been updated – Cause an unholy blast around your permanent Ghoul, dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies and evolving it into a Monstrosity, greatly empowering its abilities. Death Coil and Epidemic extends the duration of this effect by 1 second.
  - Summon Gargoyle has been redesigned – Army of the Dead summons a Gargoyle into the battlefield to bombard your enemies for 25 seconds and grant you 50 Runic Power. The Gargoyle gains 1% increased damage for every 1 Runic Power you spend. Choice node with Raise Abomination.
  - Raise Abomination has been redesigned – Army of the Dead now only summons 4 Lesser Ghouls but additionally raises an Abomination that attacks enemies while emitting a disease cloud that deals Plague damage over 30 seconds. Enemies within the disease cloud take 20% increased damage from your minions. Choice node with Summon Gargoyle.
  - Army of the Dead now has a 1.5 minute cooldown (was 3 minutes) and summons 8 lesser Ghouls.
  - Festering Scythe is now a capstone talent and has been updated – Festering Strike now follows up with Festering Scythe.
    - Festering Scythe: Slashes through all enemies within 14 yards in front of you, dealing Shadow damage and hastening all of your Plagues on targets hit to deal damage 35% faster for 20 seconds.
  - Raise Dead and Festering Strike are now learned automatically when specializing as Unholy.
  - Outbreak is no longer learned automatically and is now the initial node on the talent tree.
  - Ebon Fever now causes diseases to deal 15% more damage over time in 75% of the duration (was 12% more damage over time in half the duration).
  - Death Coil and Epidemic now extend plague duration by 3 seconds.
  - Coil of Devastation now additionally increases Death Coil damage by 10%.
  - Infliction of Sorrow now functions with Dread Plague.
  - Morbidity is now a second gate talent.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Apocalypse
    - Bursting Sores
    - Death Rot
    - Decomposition
    - Defile
    - Desecrate
    - Eternal Agony
    - Festermight
    - Improved Festering Strike
    - Legion of Souls
    - Pestilence
    - Plaguebringer
    - Rotten Touch
    - Soul Reaper
    - Unholy Blight
DEMON HUNTER
- Class
  - Felblade now generates 15 Fury (was 40).
  - Sigil of Flame moved to Vengeance specialization only.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Chaos Fragments
    - Demon Muzzle
    - Flames of Fury
    - Precise Sigils
    - Rush of Chaos
- Hero Talents
  - Annihilator
    - An Annihilator draws upon the most fundamental forces of reality to erase from existence any enemies who would threaten the same. While their methods are often questioned, they are always needed when the fight arrives.
    - Devourer and Vengeance Demon Hunters can activate the Annihilator Hero Talent tree.
  - Fel-Scarred
    - Student of Suffering effect now applied upon activating Eye Beam (was Sigil of Flame).
    - Vengeance Demon Hunters can no longer activate the Fel-Scarred Hero Talent tree.
    - Devourer Demon Hunters can activate the Fel-Scarred Hero Talent tree.
- Devourer
  - Devourer Demon Hunter is available for testing. For more information on this new Demon Hunter specialization visit the Devourer Deep Dive article.
- Havoc
  - Developers’ notes: Midnight brings targeted changes to Havoc focused on two key areas: Reducing total button count of both offensive and defense/utility abilities, especially when they have overlapping identity or functional redundancy; and simplifying circumstances of conditional bonuses that warp ability usage in unintuitive ways, especially those that stem from overlapping buff windows. Many skills have been changed or removed, including talents with unclear or overly-niche purpose. Large multiplicative skill bonuses have been changed or removed to make room for Havoc’s natural gameplay to be fun and effective.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - Desperate Instincts has been redesigned – Blur now reduces damage taken by an additional 10%. Additionally, damage taken below 35% Health is reduced by 10%.
  - Netherwalk has been redesigned – Now a passive skill. Slip into the nether when you activate Blur, increasing movement speed by 100% and becoming immune to damage for 2.5 seconds.
  - Essence Break has been redesigned – Slash all enemies in front of you for Chaos damage, causing Chaos Strike and Blade Dance to deal additional Chaos damage to them for 4 seconds. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  - Glaive Tempest has been redesigned – The final slash of Blade Dance consumes 35 Fury when it strikes 4 or more enemies, launching two demonic glaives in a whirlwind of energy, causing Chaos damage over 3 seconds to all nearby enemies. Damage reduced beyond 8 targets.
  - Demon Blades now automatically overrides Demon’s Bite.
  - Blur now reduces damage taken by 25% (was 20%) and no longer increases Dodge chance.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following class tree talents have moved to the Havoc talent tree:
    - Collective Anguish
    - Demonic
    - The Hunt
  - The following talents and skills have been removed:
    - Fel Barrage
    - Fel Eruption
    - Looks Can Kill
    - Improved Fel Rush
    - Insatiable Hunger
    - Restless Hunter
- Vengeance
  - Developers’ notes: Vengeance’s Midnight updates are primarily focused on improving the natural usability of its defensive kit. Before Midnight, Vengeance had defensive gaps that made it susceptible to difficult-to-understand deaths; it relied heavily on effects that were conditional or ramped up over time; and it skewed too heavily towards effects that were predictive in nature and required advance knowledge of encounters to use effectively. In Midnight, Vengeance’s defensive kit has been significantly streamlined by increasing baseline defenses, by making Demon Spikes easier to maintain at a high rate, by replacing complex ramp-up effects with simpler versions that reward core rotational gameplay, and by reducing emphasis on predictive effects to make room for more potent reactive ones. Additional changes aim to simplify and clarify Vengeance’s offensive rotation.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - New Talent: Tempered Steel – Physical damage increased by 12%.
  - New Talent: Felfire Fist – Activating Infernal Strike while out of combat or within 5 seconds of entering combat places a Sigil of Flame at the target location.
  - New Talent: Vengeful Beast – Metamorphosis has 5 seconds increased duration and increases the damage of Soul Cleave and Spirit Bomb by 30%.
  - Calcified Spikes has been redesigned – Demon Spikes reduces damage taken by 5% while active.
  - Feed the Demon has been redesigned – Every 20 Fury spent reduces the remaining cooldown of Demon Spikes by 1 second.
  - Revel in Pain has been redesigned – 2% of your Fire damage shields you, up to 10% of your max health. Shield and max values are doubled while Fiery Brand is active.
  - Soulcrush has been redesigned – The effects of your Frailty are doubled.
  - Deflecting Spikes is now learned at level 33 (was a talent).
  - Mastery: Fel Blood effectiveness increased by 25%.
  - Demon Spikes duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds) and its cooldown is now affected by Haste.
  - Fel Devastation damage increased by 15% and healing increased by 600%.
  - Stoke the Flames now increases Fel Devastation damage by 30% (was 35%).
  - Fiery Brand now brands yourself and an enemy target, reducing damage you take by 40% and dealing Fire damage to the enemy over 12 seconds.
  - Shear no longer automatically overrides Demon’s Bite when specializing as Vengeance.
  - Fracture now automatically overrides Demon’s Bite when specializing as Vengeance.
  - Fracture damage increased by 10% and its cooldown increased to 5 seconds (was 4.5 seconds).
  - Infernal Strike cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds) and is now affected by Haste.
  - Metamorphosis cooldown reduced to 2 minutes and now causes Fracture to generate 15 additional Fury (was 20).
  - Sigil of Flame now generates 25 Fury (was 30).
  - Ascending Flame now increases all Sigil of Flame damage (was initial damage only) and no longer causes multiple applications to overlap.
  - Soul Cleave now strikes all enemies in an arc in front of you (was 5) and damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
  - Soul Cleave now deals 20% increased damage per soul consumed, up to 2, and costs costs 35 Fury (was 30).
  - Soul Cleave no longer increases healing per soul fragment consumed.
  - Spirit Bomb now has a 25 second cooldown affected by Haste.
  - Spirit Bomb now deals a larger base damage amount, increasing by 20% per soul consumed.
  - Spirit Bomb no longer applies Frailty unless the Frailty talent is selected.
  - Perfectly Balanced Glaive now also reduces the cooldown of Fracture by 1 second in addition to its previous effect.
  - Void Reaver now causes Frailty to reduce damage by 4% (was 3%) and no longer causes Soul Cleave to apply Frailty
  - Vulnerability now causes Frailty to increase damage taken by 3/6% (was 2/4%).
  - Frailty now causes enemies struck by Sigil of Flame, Soul Cleave, and Spirit Bomb to be afflicted with Frailty for 8 seconds (was applied by Sigil of Flame for 6 seconds).
  - Volatile Flameblood now causes Immolation Aura to generate 1-5 Fury when it critical strikes (was 5-10 Fury) and also increases Immolation Aura critical strike chance by 10%.
  - Ruinous Bulwark now converts 50% of healing into an absorb shield (was 100%).
  - Painbringer now reduces damage by 3/6% (was 1/2% percent per stack) and duration increased to 8 seconds (was 6 seconds). No longer overlaps multiple applications.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following class tree talents have moved to the Vengeance talent tree:
    - Quickened Sigils
    - Sigil of Spite
    - Soul Sigils
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Bulk Extraction
    - Extended Spike
    - Illuminated Sigils
    - Meteoric Strikes
    - Shear Fury
    - Soul Furnace
DRUID
- Class
  - New Talent: Gift of the Wild – Mark of the Wild is 100% more effective on yourself.
  - Heart of the Wild has been redesigned – Perform a powerful off-role ability depending on your currently active shapeshift form.
    - Bear Form: Maximum health increased by 30% for 20 seconds.
    - Cat Form: Unleash an empowered Feral Frenzy on your enemy target, dealing Physical damage and additional Bleed damage over 6 sec. Awards 5 combo points.
    - Moonkin Form: Call down waves of empowered falling stars upon enemies within 40 yards, dealing Astral damage over 8 seconds.
    - Non-shapeshifted: Empowered Wild Growth that heals up to 5 injured allies within 30 yards of the target over 7 seconds.
  - Forestwalk now has 2 ranks and increases your movement speed and healing received by 8/16% when you cast Regrowth.
  - Matted Fur absorption increased by 140%. Now has 2 ranks, with rank 2 doubling the amount absorbed by rank 1.
  - Skull Bash is no longer available to Restoration Druids.
  - Innervate is now a capstone in the class tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Nature’s Vigil
    - Renewal
- Hero Talents
  - Druid of the Claw
    - Guardian
      - Wildshape Mastery no longer retains 80% of your Bear Form armor and health for 6 seconds when transforming from Bear to Cat Form.
  - Elune’s Chosen
    - Balance
      - Lunar Calling has been updated – Now increases damage dealt to Starfire’s primary target by 100% (was 160%) and no longer includes a reference to triggering Solar Eclipse.
  - Keeper of the Grove
    - New Talent: Sylvan Beckoning – Entering an Eclipse summons a Dryad to assist you for 8 seconds, casting Starsurge dealing astral damage and Starfall at 300% effectiveness. Your periodic heals have a chance to empower your next Swiftmend to summon a Dryad to assist you, casting Tranquility at 20% effectiveness and Regrowth onto your lowest health ally.
    - New Talent: Dryad’s Dance – Dryads cause Swiftmend to cool down 25% faster. Dryads cause most of your Astral power generation to be increased by 10%.
    - New Talent: Spirit of the Thicket – Ironbark summons a Dryad to channel a beam of pure nature onto your target, healing them for over 6 seconds. Your Starfall damage is increased by 8% and your Starsurge damage is increased by 8%.
    - Restoration
      - Durability of Nature has been redesigned – Now increases Grove Guardian duration by 20% (was Minor Cenarion ward is applied by Grove Guardians).
      - Cenarius’ Might has been redesigned – Swiftmend healing is increased by 20% (was: Swiftmend grants 10% Haste for 6 seconds).
      - Dream Surge has been redesigned – When Grove Guardians are summoned, they create Dream Petals on your target, healing up to 3 nearby allies (was your next direct heal summons Dream Petals, stacking up to 3 charges).
      - Power of the Dream has been redesigned – Now causes Dream Surge to heal 1 additional ally.
      - Early Spring reduces the cooldown of Wild Growth and Swiftmend by 1 second (was reduces the cooldown of Grove Guardians by 3 seconds).
      - Protective Growth no longer has a separate aura icon for the damage reduction.
  - Wildstalker
    - Restoration
      - Strategic Infusion now passively causes your periodic heals to have a 4% increased chance to critically heal (was a buff for 10 seconds when you cast Regrowth).
      - Symbiotic Blooms no longer appear on raid frames.
- Balance
  - Developers’ notes: The design of how you enter and maintain Eclipse is changing in Midnight. We’d like to introduce more gameplay to it. Eclipse before Midnight is so important that you immediately drop everything to refresh it when it ends. There’s no timing or strategy to it, and it can be a struggle during phases with high movement. In Midnight, Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse are an active ability that instantly enters Eclipse for 15 seconds, has a 30 second cooldown, and can be talented to have two charges. The goal is for Balance to prepare for each Eclipse and choose the perfect moment to activate it. Depending on talents and the pacing of a fight or dungeon, you might have an Eclipse up 60-80% of the time. You’ll want to spend your time in Eclipse spending Astral Power and dealing damage, and your time out of Eclipse building resources or refreshing DoTs to prepare for your next Eclipse. Balance’s Mastery has been changed so Sunfire and Moonfire no longer increase damage targets take and Waning Twilight has been removed. This allows Balance to start dealing damage faster and improves its strength in split cleave fights. Moonfire and Sunfire’s damage will be tuned to keep them as strong, efficient damage dealing spells, but the damage of your other spells will be less conditional.
  - Apex Talent: Ascendant Eclipses
    - Activating an Eclipse makes your next Wrath or Starfire Instant. The first three Starsurges or Starfalls you cast during each Eclipse deal 20% increased damage.
    - Your critical strikes dealt during an Eclipse cause their victims to languish for an additional 20/40% of damage dealt for 6 seconds.
    - Activating an Eclipse also launches Solar or Lunar Bolts at nearby enemies that always critically strike.
      - Solar Bolt: Entering Solar Eclipse launches a Solar Bolt at 1 nearby enemy that deals Nature damage.
      - Lunar Bolts: Entering Lunar Eclipse launches 3 Lunar Bolts at nearby enemies that deal Arcane damage to nearby enemies. Damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
  - New Talent: Improved Eclipse – Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse have one additional charge.
  - New Talent: Meteor Storm – Starfall deals its damage 100% faster. Choice node with Aetherial Kindling.
  - New Talent: Sculpt the Stars – The cooldowns of Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse are reduced by 2 seconds.
  - New Talent: Total Eclipse – Entering any Eclipse has a 10/20% chance to grant the benefits of both Lunar and Solar Eclipse.
  - New Talent: Elune’s Challenge – When you exit Eclipse with less than 40 Astral Power, Wrath and Starfire’s cast times are reduced by 25% for 15 seconds or until you enter an Eclipse. Choice node with Nature’s Grace.
  - New Talent: Meteorites – Every time Starfall deals damage, a meteorite falls on a target in its range, dealing Astral damage.
  - New Talent: Celestial Fire – Moonfire, Sunfire, and Shooting Stars damage increased by 15%.
  - Mastery: Astral Invocation has been updated – Your Nature spells deal 0.75Mastery% increased damage (was 0.5 * Mastery). Your Arcane spells deal 0.75Mastery% increased damage (was 0.5 * Mastery). Moonfire and Sunfire no longer cause targets to take additional damage from your spells.
  - Eclipse has been redesigned – You may draw the sun and moon into alignment for 15 seconds, empowering either your Nature or Arcane spells. Casting Wrath or Starfire changes what mode of Eclipse will be entered, and the two modes of Eclipse share a button and 32 second cooldown.
    - Lunar Eclipse: Enter a Lunar Eclipse for 15 seconds. Arcane spells deal 15% additional damage and Starfire damage is increased by 40%. Casting Wrath changes this to Solar Eclipse.
    - Solar Eclipse: Enter a Solar Eclipse for 15 seconds. Nature spells deal 15% additional damage and Wrath damage is increased by 40%. Casting Starfire changes this to Lunar Eclipse.
  - Casting Starfire and Wrath no longer enter Eclipse.
    - Developers’ notes: The intention of this change is to give Balance an element of choosing when to enter Eclipse. You cannot maintain Eclipse at all times, so your goal will be to maximize your damage while you are in Eclipse, and to spend some time between Eclipses recovering Astral Power before triggering Eclipse again.
  - Umbral Intensity has been updated – Solar Eclipse increases the damage of Wrath by an additional 10%. Lunar Eclipse increases the damage of Starfire by 10%.
  - Soul of the Forest has been updated – Solar Eclipse increases Wrath’s Astral Power generation by 50% and Lunar Eclipse increases Starfire’s Astral Power generation by 60%.
  - Starlord has been updated – During Eclipse, Starsurge and Starfall grant you 2/4% Haste for 20 seconds (was 15 seconds) or until you enter a new Eclipse. Stacks up to 3 times. Gaining a stack does not refresh the duration.
  - Touch the Cosmos has been updated – Its effect can now trigger from any Wrath or Starfire cast, not just those in Eclipse.
  - Moonfire, Sunfire, and Shooting Stars damage increased by 50%.
  - Starfire now deals 50% of primary target damage to nearby enemies (was 33%).
    - Developers’ notes: There are no longer talents that modify this percentage. We weren’t happy with how “required” those talents could become for Starfire area-of-effect damage and when it was right to take them or not.
  - Orbital Bombardment’s Stellar Flare damage increased by 30%.
  - Cosmic Rapidity no longer affects Stellar Flare.
  - Eclipses no longer apply activation overlays to Wrath and Starfire on your action bars.
    - Developers’ notes: With the Cooldown Manager making it easier to see what Eclipse you’re in, we’re testing removing these to reduce the number of ability glows you can have active at once.
  - Torghast Ability: Leaf on the Water has been updated – Now reduces the cooldown of Solar Eclipse and Lunar Eclipse by 2 seconds.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Astral Smolder
    - Astronomical Impact
    - Stellar Flare
    - Umbral Inspiration
    - Waning Twilight
    - Warrior of Elune
- Feral
  - Developers’ notes: Feral Druid is changing in Midnight to address some important mechanics that are based on information that is hidden to the player. Bleed snapshotting, where the damage a bleed deals is increased for its entire duration, is now applied only by Tiger’s Fury and Prowl. The icons of empowered bleeds change to show they’re strengthened. Bloodtalons has been removed. These changes also aim to reduce the complexity that could go into choosing the best builder to use in the moment, putting more of Ferals’ focus on maintaining bleeds and building and spending combo points. While some abilities like Brutal Slash and Adaptive Swarm have been removed, Feral has gained some new tricks that lean into their flavor as deadly hunting cats. Frantic Frenzy is a multi-target upgrade to Feral Frenzy and Blood Spattered makes them even stronger at taking down a primary target while fighting many enemies.
  - Apex Talents: Unseen Predator
    - When you Ferocious Bite, you have a 75% chance to flicker to a nearby enemy and deliver an Unseen Attack.
      - Unseen Slash: Slash a target, dealing Physical damage and additional Bleed damage over 6 seconds. If this effect is reapplied, any remaining damage is added to the new Bleed.
      - Unseen Swipe: Swipe nearby targets, dealing Physical damage. Damage reduced beyond 5 targets.
    - Unseen Attacks increase your damage done by 8/15% for 5 seconds. Additional applications extend this effect.
    - Tiger’s Fury causes you to perform an Unseen Attack after your next 2 combo point generating attacks. Rip and Unseen Attack damage increased by 30%.
  - New Talent: Panther’s Guile – Mastery increased by 2%.
  - New Talent: Lacerating Claws – Bleed damage increased by 10%.
  - New Talent: Blood Spattered – Ferocious Bite’s damage to its primary target increased by 2% for each enemy affected by your Rip, up to 10.
  - New Talent: Chomp – Chomp your target, causing Physical damage. Chomp can only be used when you have less than 30 Energy. 20 second cooldown.
  - New Talent: Hunger for Battle – When an enemy afflicted by your Rip dies, gain 10 Energy and your damage dealt is increased by 5% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
  - New Talent: Focused Frenzy – Reduces the cooldown of Feral Frenzy by 15 seconds. Choice node with Frantic Frenzy.
  - Frantic Frenzy: Replaces Feral Frenzy – Flicker to 5 nearby enemies in front of you and claw all enemies around them for physical damage and additional Bleed damage over 6 seconds. 45 second cooldown. Choice node with Focused Frenzy.
  - Sudden Ambush has been updated – Finishing moves have a 4% chance per combo point spent to guarantee your next Rake, Shred, or Swipe critically strikes all targets.
    - Developers’ notes: This retains the increased damage and extra combo points without snapshotting.
  - Ashamane’s Guidance has been updated – Now reduces the cooldown of Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane by 30 seconds.
  - Druid of the Claw: Tear Down the Mighty has been updated – No longer reduces the cooldown of Feral Frenzy. Instead, damage dealt by Chomp increased by 20%.
  - Predatory Swiftness is now learned at level 30 (was a talent).
  - Thrash damage increased by 50% and its cooldown is now 6 seconds.
  - Swipe damage decreased by 20%.
  - Omen of Clarity no longer effects Thrash, only Shred and Swipe.
    - Developers’ notes: This is to remove Moment of Clarity snapshotting for Thrash’s bleed.
  - Savage Fury now lasts 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  - Rampant Ferocity now damages all nearby targets, not only those afflicted by Rip.
  - Saber Jaws now increases the extra damage from spending extra Energy on Ferocious Bite by 50% (was 60%). This does not affect PvP combat.
  - Apex Predator triggers less often with a single Rip active and triggers more often when multiple Rips are active.
    - Developers’ notes: This is a continuing effort to make Apex Predator targeted more at area-of-effect and funnel damage scenarios. It should be good on bosses, but you might take other talents in pure single target.
  - Many talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - Berserk: Heart of the Lion icon changed.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Adaptive Swarm
    - Berserk: Frenzy
    - Bloodtalons
    - Brutal Slash
    - Lion’s Strength
    - Unbridled Swarm
- Guardian
  - Developers’ notes: Guardian Druid’s Rage economy is very oversaturated, particularly during cooldowns and in multi-target contexts, resulting in excessive APM and unintuitive resource management. We’re aiming to smooth out Rage income and provide healthier outlets. Additionally, we’re pulling back in areas where survivability feels contingent on having multiple layers of defensives, and improving a smaller set of baseline abilities instead.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - New Talent: Gift of an Ancient Guardian – Ironfur increases your Mastery by 5%.
  - New Talent: Ward of the Forest – Barkskin increases your maximum health by 20%, but its duration is reduced by 40%.
  - New Talent: Persistence – When you shapeshift out of Bear Form, its health and armor bonuses slowly decay over 8 seconds.
  - New Talent: Memory of Ysera – Heal for 1% of your maximum health each time you spend 40 Rage.
  - New Talent: Red Moon – Channel the White Lady’s wrath to deal Arcane damage to your target; casting Mangle extends its duration by 1 second and generates 8 Rage. Replaces Moonfire. 30 second cooldown.
  - New Talent: Sundering Roar – Roar with earthshattering ferocity, dealing Physical damage, resetting the cooldown of Thrash, and allowing it to stack 5 additional times for 12 seconds; when Sundering Roar ends, any excess stacks of Thrash immediately deal their remaining damage. 60 second cooldown.
  - New Talent: Waking Nightmare – Awaken memories of past conflicts, causing a Dread Shade to take form nearby. While active, shades slowly travel toward your target, dealing Nature damage to nearby enemies and mirroring your Thrash casts.
  - New Talent: Harnessed Rage – Mangle has 1 additional charge, and when Maul is cast at 80 Rage or above, its chance to activate Gore is increased by 100%.
  - New Talent: Front of the Pack – Stampeding Roar’s radius is increased by 30%, and your movement speed is increased by 5%.
  - New Talent: Memory of Ysera – Heal for 1% of your maximum health each time you spend 40 Rage.
  - New Talent: Ward of the Forest – Barkskin increases your maximum health by 30%, but its duration is reduced by 20%.
  - Berserk has been redesigned – Go berserk for 15 seconds, reducing the cooldowns of Mangle, Thrash, and Growl by 50% and the cooldown of Frenzied Regeneration by 100%.
  - Galactic Guardian has been redesigned – Your damage has a 5% chance to trigger a free automatic Moonfire on that target.
    - Moonfire: When this occurs, the next Moonfire you cast generates 8 Rage and deals 300% increased direct damage.
    - Red Moon: When this occurs, you gain 1 charge of Lunar Wrath. Spending Rage while Red Moon is active consumes a stack to deal additional Arcane damage to its target and heal you.
  - Vulnerable Flesh has been redesigned – Maul and Raze damage increased by 15%.
  - Survival Instincts now has two charges baseline (was a talent).
  - Ursol’s Warding is now a 1-point talent.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Berserk: Persistence
    - Berserk: Unchecked Aggression
    - Earthwarden
    - Improved Survival Instincts
    - Thorns of Iron
- Restoration
  - Developers’ notes: We are significantly reducing the number of buffs Restoration Druid can apply to allies to make raid frames and target frames easy to parse and always show your important effects. Restoration Druid’s Mastery will also be much more effective per healing over time effect active, as they can now only apply up to 5 heal over time effects to allies. We are also streamlining several cooldowns and actives we felt were redundant with other tools in the kit by either removing them or combining them with other abilities. Finally, we are reducing the amount of maintenance buffs by making targeted changes to Lifebloom talents and offering a way to maintain Efflorescence automatically on your Lifebloom target.
  - Apex Talents: Everbloom
    - Lifebloom stacks every 5 seconds, up to 3 times.
    - 30% of Lifebloom’s healing splashes to 2 allies within 30 yards.
    - Lifebloom bursts into a Blooming Frenzy when you consume Soul of the Forest, causing it to bloom 8 times in rapid succession.
  - New Talent: Nature’s Bounty – Regrowth heals all allies affected by Regrowth for 30% of its healing.
  - New Talent: Lifetreading – Replaces Efflorescence. Efflorescence healing increased by 30%, and it now automatically grows beneath your Lifebloom target’s feet.
  - New Talent: Intensity – When Regrowth critically heals, it is 300% effective instead of the usual 200%.
  - Flourish has been redesigned – Now a passive talent that upgrades Tranquility, causing it to extend your heal over time effects by 2 seconds each time it heals. Available directly below Tranquility.
  - Wild Synthesis has been redesigned – Now increases the healing of Grove Guardians and Efflorescence by 35%.
  - Cultivation has been redesigned – Rejuvenation heals instantly for 21% Spell Power on targets below 60% health.
  - Grove Guardians have been redesigned – Casting Swiftmend or Wild Growth summons a Treant that casts Nourish on that target or a nearby ally periodically. Lasts 8 seconds.
  - Mastery: Harmony now increases your healing by 11.4% per heal over time effect (was 6%). Note that this benefit falls off over time, and is most effective on your first heal over time.
  - Photosynthesis no longer causes Lifebloom to increase the healing rate of your spells by 10%. Chance to bloom increased to 8%.
  - Tranquility direct healing increased by 40% and no longer applies a heal over time effect to allies.
  - Tranquility duration increased to 6 seconds (was 5 seconds) and time between each periodic heal reduced to 1 second (was 1.25 seconds).
  - Incarnation: Tree of Life now has its duration paused while channeling Tranquility.
  - Developers’ notes: We are combining Soul of the Forest and Power of the Archdruid to make Soul of the Forest a more interesting decision point in raid environments and introduce some fresh gameplay. We are also increasing the base healing of Regrowth and Wild Growth to compensate for these changes.
  - Soul of the Forest increases the healing of your next Rejuvenation or Regrowth by 100% (was 150%). No longer affects Wild Growth.
  - Power of the Archdruid has been redesigned – Now improves Soul of the Forest to cause your next Rejuvenation or Regrowth to apply to 2 additional allies within 20 yards of the target.
  - Wild Growth healing increased by 40%.
  - Regrowth healing increased by 70%.
  - Regrowth’s heal over time duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 12 seconds).
  - Rampant Growth increases Regrowth’s healing over time by 100% (was 50%).
  - Nature’s Swiftness increases Regrowth’s healing by 100% (was 200%).
  - Rejuvenation now shows an upgraded icon for its duration when empowered by Soul of the Forest or Incarnation: Tree of Life.
  - Abundance now displays the number of stacks on Regrowth’s icon on the action bar.
  - Swiftmend relocated to the Restoration talent tree (was learned at level 11).
  - Omen of Clarity relocated to the Restoration talent tree (was learned at level 12).
  - Verdant Infusion now updates Swiftmend’s tooltip to communicate the heal over time extension amount.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Budding Leaves
    - Cenarion Ward
    - Dreamstate
    - Flash of Clarity
    - Grove Tending
    - Invigorate
    - Overgrowth
    - Spring Blossoms
    - Twinleaf
    - Undergrowth
    - Forest’s Flow
EVOKER
- Hero Talents
  - Chronowarden
    - New Talent: Chronoboon – Tip the Scales’ cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.
    - New Talent: Overclock – Chrono Flames’ maximum damage or healing is increased by 40%, up to 350%.
    - New Talent: Energy Cycles – Temporal Burst grants Essence Burst every 6 seconds.
    - Golden Opportunity has been redesigned – Now increases the effectiveness of Echo by 10% or the duration of Prescience by 15%.
  - Scalecommander
    - New Talent: Command Squadron – While flying during Breath of Eons or Deep Breath you are assisted by a squadron of Dracthyr who assault enemies with Pyre, dealing Fire damage to nearby enemies up to 8 times.
    - New Talent: Concentrated Power – Mass Disintegrate or Mass Eruption strikes 1 additional target.
    - New Talent: Refined Essence – Essence abilities deal 15% more damage.
    - Slipstream now grants a charge of Hover instead of granting full charges.
    - Devastation
      - Disintegrate’s icon now changes while Mass Disintegrate is active.
  - Flameshaper
    - New Talent: Ashes in Motion – Fire Breath’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
    - New Talent: Deep Exhalation – Fire Breath’s damage over time lasts 4 seconds longer.
    - New Talent: Essence Well – Dream Breath and Fire Breath have a 50% chance to generate Essence Burst.
    - New Talent: Twin Flame – Consuming Essence Burst fires a twin flame, healing or damaging your target for 390% Spell Power.
    - New Talent: Fire Torrent – Twin Flame bounces to up to 2 additional targets.
    - Burning Adrenaline has been redesigned – Fire Breath reaches its maximum empower level 20% faster.
    - The following talents have been removed:
      - Engulf
      - Flame Siphon
      - Red Hot
    - Devastation
      - New Talent: Legacy of the Lifebinder – Fire Breath gains an additional charge.
      - Consume Flame has been redesigned – Disintegrate damage consumes 0.6 seconds of Fire Breath from enemies it damages, detonating it for 150% of the amount consumed. Pyre consumes 3 seconds of Fire Breath from enemies it damages, detonating it for 150% of the amount consumed.
    - Preservation
      - New Talent: Legacy of the Lifebinder – Dream Breath gains an additional charge.
      - Consume Flame has been redesigned – Verdant Embrace healing consumes 4 seconds of Dream Breath from allies it heals, detonating it and healing them for 200% of the amount consumed. Emerald Blossom healing consumes 2 seconds of Dream Breath from allies it heals, detonating it and healing them for 200% of the amount consumed.
- Class
  - Unravel has been redesigned as a passive effect – Fire Breath consumes absorb shields from enemies, dealing additional Spellfrost damage to them.
  - Azure Strike damage increased by 50%.
  - Leaping Flames now changes the icon for Living Flame while active.
- Augmentation
  - Developers’ notes: The goal of these changes is to simplify Ebon Might targeting in raid environments. Since it now applies to all members of the raid, there is no need to micromanage who it should go on. There will still be some buff management gameplay with Prescience, which will continue to have a smart-targeting option for those who do not want to swap targets between enemies and allies frequently. Overall, this should make raid gameplay much smoother and similar to dungeon gameplay.
  - Apex Talents: Duplicate
    - Breath of Eons summons a version of you from the future to assist you in battle, lasting 20 seconds. Your duplicate casts Eruption, empower spells, and Living Flame.
    - Any time you extend Ebon Might, your duplicate is also extended, equal to 50/100% of the amount you extended Ebon Might by.
    - While your duplicate is active, your Ebon Might is 100% more effective and Upheaval and Eruption deal 25% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Clairvoyant – Motes of Possibility may now grant Prescience to allies and have a 10% increased chance to activate.
  - Regenerative Chitin has been redesigned – Blistering Scales no longer loses charges and deals 20% more damage.
  - Ebon Might now grants 8% primary stat (was 5%).
  - Ebon Might is now applied to all damage dealing allies within 100 yards.
  - Ebon Might now splits its effect when applied to more than 2 other allies and is no longer is limited to 2 maximum applications.
  - Breath of Eons’ debuff Temporal Wound is now visible to all allies, and indicates how much damage it accumulates on the aura tooltip.
  - Temporal Wound now reduces its effect when Ebon Might is applied to more than 2 allies.
  - Breath of Eons accumulates 15% of damage (was 10%).
  - Defy Fate healing increased by 100%.
  - Molten Blood absorption increased by 30%.
  - Inferno’s Blessing now only targets you and 1 nearby ally (was all allies with Ebon Might). New visual of a flame sprite added to represent the blessing. Damage increased to 350% spell power (was 88% spell power).
  - Ignition Rush has been relocated to Rockfall’s location and now increases the damage of Eruption by 20%.
  - Rockfall has been removed.
- Devastation
  - Developers’ notes: Devastation is one of our simpler caster specializations and we feel most rotational spells and talents already align with our approachability goals. In Midnight, we’re removing Shattering Star and Firestorm and adding some fresh talents in their stead to continue to evolve gameplay, including a talent that allows Deep Breath to be used a second time. We’re also updating Flameshaper talents by removing Engulf and having the keystone grant an additional charge of Fire Breath with some gameplay around managing Fire Breath’s damage over time effect.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - New Talent: Star Salvo – Increases Shattering Star damage by 35%. Shattering Stars are exhaled at all of your Eternity Surge targets.
  - New Talent: Azure Sweep – Eternity Surge upgrades your next Azure Strike to Azure Sweep, damaging all nearby enemies and dealing 75% additional damage.
  - New Talent: Second Exhale – Deep Breath deals 20% increased damage and can be cast again within 18 seconds of being used. Recall will be available after the second cast if talented. In PvP, Deep Breath damage is instead reduced by 20%.
  - Shattering Star has been redesigned as a passive called Shattering Stars – Eternity Surge releases a Shattering Star at your target that deals 50% more damage per empower level reached.
  - Honed Aggression has been redesigned – Increases the critical strike chance of your spells by 2%/4%.
  - Engulfing Blaze has been redesigned – Now increases the damage of Living Flame by 10% and reduces its cast time by 0.3 seconds.
  - Pyre damage increased by 20%.
  - Charged Blast increases the damage of Pyre by 2% per stack (was 5%).
  - Feed the Flames now activates after casting 6 Pyres (was 9).
  - Arcane Intensity now also increases the damage of Azure Strike.
  - Eternity’s Span now only affects Eternity Surge.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Arcane Vigor
    - Dense Energy
    - Firestorm
    - Focusing Iris
    - Shattering Star
    - Snapfire
- Preservation
  - Developers’ notes: Preservation’s gameplay has always revolved around planning large healing moments and rotating a series of powerful cooldowns to deliver healing. We would like to simplify the planning gameplay by lowering the number of cooldowns they are juggling and by changing one of their largest healing combos - Lifebind. To compensate for lost power, their bread-and-butter healing spells will be more effective, particularly Emerald Blossom, Verdant Embrace, and Dream Breath. We are also making several quality-of-life adjustments: Dream Breath’s range is increased to 40 yards, Dream Flight now protects the Evoker while they are in flight, and Evokers now have the option to talent into a ranged version of Verdant Embrace. The end goal is that Preservation’s style of delivering healing is more intuitive and easier to pick up, while still being unique and Dragon-like.
  - Apex Talents: Merithra’s Blessing
    - Essence abilities have a chance to infuse your next Reversion with the power of the Green Dragonflight, upgrading it to Merithra’s Blessing.
      - Merithra’s Blessing: Spring a bloom of life from your target, healing them and up to 5 other allies within 30 yards. Blooms may heal your primary target multiple times if no nearby injured allies are present.
    - Reversion protects allies, reversing 2/4% of all damage taken and healing them instead.
    - Dream Breath’s instant healing is increased by 125% and Dream Breath has a 100% chance to grant Merithra’s Blessing.
  - New Talent: Dream Simulacrum – Verdant Embrace healing is increased by 40%. In addition, it no longer causes you to leap to your target, instead sending forth a Dream Simulacrum. Choice node and gate 3 capstone.
  - New Talent: Wings of Liberty – Verdant Embrace may be used up to 3 times within 5 seconds with no cooldown. Choice node and gate 3 capstone.
  - New Talent: Twin Echoes – Casting Emerald Blossom causes your next Echo to cast on an additional ally within 25 yards at 100% effectiveness. Gate 3 capstone.
  - New Talent: Inner Flame – For 15/20 seconds after casting Stasis/Dream Flight, your healing over time is increased by 60% and your chance to cause Essence Burst is increased by 100%.
  - Field of Dreams has been redesigned – Now causes every other Emerald Blossom to have a 100% chance for one of your Fluttering Seedlings to grow into a new Emerald Blossom.
  - Empath has been redesigned – Now functions with all empower spells.
  - Spiritual Clarity has been redesigned – Now reduces the cooldown of Dream Breath by 10 seconds.
  - All healing increased by 5%.
  - Lifebind now transfers 60% of healing (was 40%) and can no longer be Echoed. Talent moved to gate 1.
  - Verdant Embrace healing increased by 60%.
  - Emerald Blossom healing increased by 100%.
  - Dream Breath’s cone size has been increased to 40 yards (was 30).
  - Stasis and Dream Flight are now a choice node in the center of the tree.
  - Dream Flight healing increased by 25%. Healing outside of raid increased by 250% (was 100%).
  - Dream Flight now absorbs damage you take while in flight, up to 100% of your maximum health.
  - Titan’s Gift now causes Essence Burst to increase the effectiveness of your next Essence ability by 35% (was 25%).
  - Dream Breath now has a different icon when it is Echoed.
  - Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Cycle of Life
    - Emerald Communion (now a PvP talent)
    - Spiritbloom
HUNTER
- Hero Talents
  - Dark Ranger
    - Developers’ notes: Black Arrow provides an unusually high amount of damage relative to the rest of Marksmanship and Beast Mastery’s kits. In Midnight, we’re making some adjustments to ensure that Dark Ranger’s effects don’t completely overshadow the core abilities of Marksmanship and Beast Mastery.
    - New Talent: Corpsecaller
      - Marksmanship: Black Arrow’s periodic damage has a small chance to rouse the dead, summoning a Dark Minion to fight alongside you for 20 seconds.
      - Beast Mastery: When summoning a Dire Beast, you have a 10% chance to instead summon a Dark Hound.
    - New Talent: Wailing Dead – Bloodshed/Trueshot summons a Dark Hound/Dark Minion and replaces Bloodshed/Trueshot with Wailing Arrow.
      - Developers’ notes: Wailing Arrow now additionally grants Deathblow and its silence duration has been reduced to 1 second.
    - New Talent: Blighted Quiver – You fire 2 additional Black Arrows during Withering Fire’s barrage. Trick Shot/Aspect of the Hydra damage bonus increased by 10%. Beast Cleave and Kill Cleave damage bonus increased by 10%.
    - New Talent: Pact of the Hollow – Aimed Shot causes the Dark Minion to fire a Blighted Arrow, dealing moderate Shadow damage to up to 8 nearby enemies. Kill Command causes your Dark Hound to Shadow Thrash, dealing moderate Shadow damage to up to 8 nearby enemies.
    - Black Arrow has been updated – Periodic damage increased substantially and is no longer a rolling periodic.
      - Developers’ notes: Making Black Arrow’s periodic effect a Rolling Periodic didn’t move the dial in terms of its power, so we’re opting to simplify it and increase its damage substantially. Our goal is to have Black Arrow’s periodic damage be a more potent area-of-effect tuning knob now that it can easily be mass-applied by Umbral Reach. Since it no longer is a rolling periodic, this won’t impact the power of the periodic effect in single target dramatically.
    - Soul Drinker has been updated – Now causes Kill Command and Barbed Shot to have a chance to grant Deathblow. Now causes Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire to have an increased chance to grant Deathblow.
    - Bleak Arrows has been updated – No longer has a chance to grant Deathblow. Now increases auto shot damage by 100%.
      - Developers’ notes: In Midnight, we’d like the best way for you to generate Deathblow to be casting your core rotational spells, so we’re removing the proc from auto attacks and adding a new and stronger source via Soul Drinker.
    - Banshee’s Mark has been updated – Now increases the critical strike damage of Bleak Powder and Black Arrow by 10%. Choice node with the Bell Tolls.
    - The Bell Tolls has been updated – Now increases pet damage and Dire Beast damage for Beast Mastery. Increases crit chance and Dark Minion damage for Marksmanship.
      - Developers’ notes: The Bell Tolls has not proven to be as reliable of a tuning knob as we’d like, so we’re simplifying and focusing its bonuses.
    - Phantom Pain has been removed.
    - Beast Mastery
      - Withering Fire has been updated – Now activates from Bloodshed for Beast Mastery. No longer periodically grants Deathblow for Beast Mastery.
      - Black Arrow keystone talent now grants Black Arrow to Beast Mastery.
  - Pack Leader
    - New Talent: Lethal Barbs – Your auto shot/auto attacks grant 2 Focus to you and your pet. Auto shot/auto attack damage increased by 25%.
    - New Talent: Sharpened Fangs – Your Mastery is increased by 3%.
    - New Talent: Hoof and Blade – Hogstrider further increases the damage of Cobra Shot by 10% and it now stacks up to 3 additional times. Choice node against Wyvern’s Gaze.
    - New Talent: Wyvern’s Gaze – The damage bonus from your Wyvern is increased by 5% and it now lasts an additional 4 seconds.
    - New Talent: Sharpened Claws – The damage of your Bear’s Rend Flesh is increased by 15%. Choice node with Ursine Fury.
    - New Talent: Stampede! – Casting Bestial Wrath or Takedown grants Howl of the Pack Leader and causes your next Kill Command to rouse the nearby wildlife into a Stampede, charging your target and dealing heavy Physical damage over 7 seconds.
    - Pack Mentality has been updated – Wildfire Bomb and Barbed Shot cooldown reduction reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds). Now grants 100% additional Kill Command damage to Survival Hunters.
    - Hogstrider has been updated – No longer affects Mongoose Bite or Raptor Strike. Now increases Hatchet Toss’s damage by 100% and causes it to strike 1 additional nearby target per stack, stacking up to 4 times.
    - Ursine Fury has been updated – When your Bear is summoned, it is joined by 2 Dire Beasts.
    - No Mercy has been updated – The damage your Bleed effects is increased by 20%.
    - Howl of the Pack Leader has been updated –
      - Boar now charges once per summon (was 3 times). Boar charge primary and secondary target damage increased by 300%.
        
        Developers’ notes: Pack Leader, especially on Beast Mastery, creates a lot of visual noise in the world. By reducing how many charges the Boar does, we’re hoping to give some more room for the visuals/effects of your spec and hero talent to breathe while also making the Boar’s collision with your target more noticeable and impactful.
      - Bear base damage and stat scalings reduced by 40%.
        
        Developers’ notes: The Pack Leader Bear will continue to be one of the more powerful Pack Leader summons, but we’d like to reduce its impact relative to the other Pack Leader summons.
    - Shell Cover has been updated – Survival of the Fittest now summons a Turtle to aid you, further increasing its damage reduction effect by 10%.
    - The following talents have been removed:
      - Envenomed Fangs
      - Lead from the Front
    - Survival
      - Dire Summons has been updated – Kill Command now reduces the cooldown of Howl of the Pack Leader by 1.5 seconds (was 2.5 seconds). Raptor Strike now reduces the cooldown by 1 second (was 1.5 seconds).
  - Sentinel
    - Developers’ notes: Sentinel has been rebuilt and redesigned for Midnight. Our goals with this update were targeting the Keystone and Capstone, since that was where a majority of the tree’s complexity stemmed. This updated version of Sentinel should provide more active and directed gameplay, require substantially less tracking, be more deeply ingrained into the playstyles of Marksmanship and Survival, all while being less visually and audibly noisy.
    - New Talent: Moonlight Chakram – After casting Trueshot or Takedown, it is replaced with Moonlight Chakram for 15 seconds. Throw a chakram blessed with moonlight at your current target that will rapidly deal Physical damage 7 times, bouncing to other targets if they are nearby.
    - New Talent: Stalk and Strike – Throwing your Moonlight Chakram grants you Lock and Load/1 charge of Wildfire Bomb and has a 100% chance to apply Sentinel’s Mark. Choice node against Twilight Requiem.
    - New Talent: Twilight Requiem – When your Moonlight Chakram expires, it summons an explosion of moonlight, dealing moderate Arcane damage to nearby enemies. Damage reduced beyond 8 targets. Choice node against Stalk and Strike.
    - New Talent: Radiant Edge – Your Moonlight Chakram deals 25% increased damage each time it bounces.
    - New Talent: Moon’s Blessing – Consuming Precise Shots/Raptor Strike has a 10% increased chance to summon your Sentinel Owl. When your Sentinel Owl applies Sentinel’s Mark, reduce the cooldown of Aimed Shot/Wildfire Bomb by 2 seconds/6 seconds.
    - New Talent: Stargazer – Consuming Precise Shots/Casting Raptor Strike grants 2% critical strike damage for 10 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap. Choice node with Open Fire.
    - New Talent: Open Fire – Volley/Flamefang Pitch damage increased by 15%. Sentinel’s Mark is applied to 1 enemy within your Volley/Flamefang Pitch.
    - New Talent: Arcane Talons – Sentinel’s Mark further increases the damage of Aimed Shot/Wildfire Bomb by 10%/50%.
    - New Talent: Can’t Miss, Won’t Miss – Precise Shots/Raptor Strike damage bonus increased by 40%/25%. Trueshot/Takedown duration increased by 4 seconds/2 seconds.
    - New Talent: Sanctified Armaments – An additional 25%/15% of Rapid Fire/Raptor Strike’s damage is dealt as Arcane damage over 6 seconds.
    - New Talent: Conditioning – Your movement speed is increased by 8%. Aspect of the Cheetah’s cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds. Choice node with Scout’s Vigil.
    - New Talent: Scout’s Vigil – Enemy detection radius reduced by 10 yards. While in Camouflage, your stealth detection radius is increased by 25 yards.
    - New Talent: Lunar Calling
      - Marksmanship: Feathered Frenzy further increases your chance to summon your Sentinel Owl during Trueshot by 10%.
      - Survival: Takedown summons your Sentinel Owl. Your chance to summon your Sentinel Owl is increased by an additional 10% during Primal Frenzy.
    - Sentinel has been redesigned:
      - Marksmanship: Your Eagle is replaced with a Sentinel Owl that applies an enhanced Sentinel’s Mark. Sentinel’s Mark: Increases the damage taken from Aimed Shot by 30%.
      - Survival: Raptor Strike has a chance to summon the aid of a Sentinel Owl that descends from the skies and applies Sentinel’s Mark to your target. Sentinel’s Mark: Increases the damage taken from Wildfire Bomb by 80%.
    - Lunar Storm has been redesigned – When Sentinel’s Mark is consumed, it summons a barrage of 4 lunar missiles, each dealing heavy Arcane damage to enemies within 10 yards.
    - Don’t Look Back has been redesigned – Consuming Sentinel’s Mark grants you an absorb shield equal to 10% of your maximum health.
    - Invigorating Pulse has been redesigned – Steady Shot/Kill Command grants an additional 5 Focus and its damage is increased by 20%. Maximum Focus increased by 25.
    - The following talents have been removed:
      - Catch Out
      - Crescent Steel
      - Extrapolated Shots
      - Eyes Closed
      - Kill Shot (moved to the Marksmanship talent tree)
      - Overwatch
      - Release and Reload
      - Sentinel Precision
      - Sentinel Watch
      - Sideline
      - Symphonic Arsenal
- Class
  - Hunter’s Mark has been updated – Now increases the target’s damage taken by 3% (was 5% above 80% health).
    - Developers’ notes: We’d like Hunter’s Mark to be more broadly appealing and easier to use, so we’re simplifying its effect and buffing it.
- Beast Mastery
  - Developers’ notes: Beast Mastery Hunters have a fantasy of consistent, reliable, and powerful pet-sourced attacks, and that’s something we’re looking to lean into as we move into Midnight. We’re reducing the number of conditionals, auras, and modifiers on Barbed Shot to make it more easy to spend as its available. We’ve grown fond of Bestial Wrath’s shorter cooldown, and as such are removing Barbed Wrath’s dynamic cooldown reduction effect to instead give Bestial Wrath a flat cooldown of 30 seconds when fully talented. Multi-Shot has had an odd place in Beast Mastery’s kit, so we’re giving it an update, causing it to be replaced in the Beast Mastery spec tree with a new pet-sourced attack that deals substantial damage in AOE while also activating effects like Beast Cleave and Kill Cleave. We hope this new spell will feel powerful and contribute meaningfully to your area damage. Bloodshed and Call of the Wild felt like they were both competing for a similar role of a cooldown that summoned a few more units to fight for you. As such, we removed Call of the Wild and are focusing on Bloodshed as a cooldown to get a few extra beasts to attack your enemies. With the change to make Kill Shot a Marksmanship only ability, Dark Rangers will now learn Black Arrow as a separate ability if they choose that Hero Talent tree.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - New Talent: The Beast Within – Reduces the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 30/60 seconds.
  - New Talent: Wild Thrash – Commands your pet(s) to attack all enemies near them. 8 second cooldown.
  - New Talent: Frenzy – Increases pet attack speed by 30/60%.
  - New Talent: Jagged Wounds – All bleed damage dealt by you and your pets increased by 10%.
  - Thrill of the Hunt has been redesigned – Critical strike chance increased by 2/4%.
  - Training Expert has been redesigned – Now increases pet damage by 2/4%.
  - Brutal Companion has been redesigned – Barbed Shot has a 25% chance to cause your pet to use its special attack and deal 50% bonus damage.
  - Thundering Hooves has been redesigned – Stomp damage increased by 30%. Bestial Wrath commands all active pets to Stomp at 200% effectiveness.
  - Serpentine Strikes has been redesigned – Now increases the critical damage of Cobra Shot by 50%.
  - Bloody Frenzy has been redesigned – When you use Bloodshed, your Barbed Shot damage over time happens 100% faster for 12 seconds.
  - Wild Instincts has been redesigned – Whenever your primary pet (and only your primary pet) uses Stomp, you will fire a free Barbed Shot at a target not already affected by Barbed Shot. This Barbed Shot cannot cause another Stomp.
  - Barbed Shot has been updated – Barbed Shot’s bleed is now a rolling periodic.
  - Dire Frenzy has been updated – Now increases Dire Beast damage by 10/20% (was 30/60%).
  - War Orders has been updated – Now has a 100% chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Command.
  - Kill Command damage increased by 50%.
  - Beast Cleave duration increased to 8 seconds.
  - Beast Cleave now activates when you use Wild Thrash, rather than from Multi-Shot.
  - Bestial Wrath initial damage increased substantially and now increases player and pet damage by 20% (was 30%).
  - Scent of Blood is no longer a 2-point node.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Barbed Wrath
    - Hunter’s Prey
    - Multi-Shot
    - Poisoned Barbs
    - Serpentine Rhythm
    - Wild Call
- Marksmanship
  - Developers’ notes: We are generally pleased with the state of Marksmanship after their Undermine(d) and Ghosts of K’aresh updates, but there were a few bigger things we’d like to address as we move into Midnight. Most notably, the introduction of Streamline as a core mechanic for Marksmanship inflated the amount of cast time reduction Marksmanship Hunters have access to while also contributing an extra aura to track. Aimed Shot is meant to be a long cast that is worth the wait. As its cast time reduces, so too must its damage, and we feel that flies in the face of what Aimed Shot should be about– as such we’ll be removing Streamline and increasing Aimed Shot’s damage. While Explosive Shot found a home as a guaranteed way to gain Lock and Load in Ghosts of K’aresh, we feel that it’s healthier for the spec as a whole to distance itself from Explosive Shot and instead focus on the more fantasy-forward spells like Volley and Kill Shot– spells that more often than not are competing with it in your rotational priorities. Speaking of Kill Shot, we are removing it from the Hunter class tree and letting Marksmanship fully own the execute niche it provides. Trueshot is gaining some cooldown reduction, cast time reduction, and focus cost reduction to compensate for the removal of Streamline.
  - Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
  - New Talent: Deathblow – Aimed Shot has a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Shot and cause your next cast to be usable on any target regardless of their current health.
  - New Talent: Lethality – Critical damage dealt by your abilities and auto attacks is increased by 5%/10%.
  - Shrapnel Shot has been updated – Now grants Lock and Load when you Volley.
  - Aspect of the Hydra has been updated – Now also includes Kill Shot/Black Arrow.
  - Tensile Bowstring has been updated – No longer extends Trueshot. Now reduces the cast time and Focus cost of Aimed Shot during Trueshot.
  - Bullet Hell has been updated – Now reduces the cooldown of Volley by 15 seconds.
  - On Target has been updated – Now grants 2% increased Haste (was short duration Haste every time you consumed Spotter’s Mark).
  - Penetrating Shots has been updated – Crit damage bonus reduced to 25% of critical strike chance (was 40%).
  - Master Marksman has been updated – Now causes targets to bleed for 10% of the damage of a critical strike (was 15%).
    - Developers’ notes: Marksmanship likes critical strike a bit too much, so we’re bringing it in slightly. We fully expect critical strike to remain a chase and powerful stat for Marksmanship after these adjustments.
  - Aimed Shot damage increased by 50%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Bullet Hell is now on a choice node with Shrapnel Shot.
  - Trueshot’s tooltip has been updated to better reflect the various bonuses provided by its talents.
  - Salvo’s tooltip has been updated to communicate the effects of Explosive Shot.
  - Fixed an issue causing Unmatched Precision to grant more damage than intended to Kill Shot and Black Arrow.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Double Tap
    - Improved Deathblow
    - Improved Streamline
    - Moving Target
    - Razor Fragments
    - Streamline
    - Tactical Reload
- Survival
  - Developers’ notes: As we head into Midnight, we’re continuing to refine and focus Survival Hunter’s fantasy, giving clearer playstyle, gameplay, and visual direction. Over the course of Alpha, we’ll be reintroducing one-handers into Survival Hunter’s pool of available weapons, which means we’ll also be looking to distance Survival from its spear-only identity that it’s had since Legion. We’ll be doubling down on Survival’s relationship with its pet with new talents that create an interdependency between the Hunter’s damage and their pet’s damage. Additionally, we’re leaning into the rugged, crafty, and bomb-centric fantasy we explored in The War Within with a new Fire grenade called Flamefang Pitch, a new visual and fantasy identity for Fury of the Eagle called Boomstick, and a host of new Wildfire Bomb talents and synergies.
    Survival Hunter had a substantial number of abilities that were competing for your attention at any given time. Coordinated Assault and Flanking Strike have been combined into a new burst cooldown called Takedown that strives to take the best parts of both spells and blend them into one moment. We also made the tough decision to redesign Mongoose Bite. We feel confident that simplifying Mongoose Bite will allow us to carve out more interesting design space for Survival both now and in the future.
    Lastly, in Midnight, we’d like Survival Hunter’s area damage to come from their explosives: Wildfire Bomb, Boomstick, and Flamefang Pitch, and as such we’re removing Butchery and its associated effects. We expect Raptor Swipe (Survival Hunter’s Apex Talent) to provide meaningful and exciting moments of AOE in between your chunky explosive spells.
  - Apex Talents: Raptor Swipe
    - Raptor Strike has a 25% chance to trigger a Raptor Swipe, dealing moderate physical damage to up to 5 nearby enemies and grant you 15 Focus.
    - During Takedown, your chance to trigger Raptor Swipe is increased to 50/100%. Raptor Strike and Raptor Swipe damage increased by 10/20%.
    - Raptor Swipes cause your pet to lash out, dealing heavy single target damage to your main target and granting you 3% increased Haste for 10 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap.
  - Survival hunters are now able to dual wield one-handed axes, swords, and daggers.
  - New Ability: Hatchet Toss – Throw an axe at your target dealing moderate damage. 40 yard range. 30 Focus cost. Replaces Arcane Shot upon specializing into Survival Hunter.
  - New Talent: Strike as One – Your damaging abilities provoke your pet to attack, dealing light Physical damage.
  - New Talent: Takedown – You and your pet leap to your target and strike as one, dealing heavy physical damage to your target. For the next 8 seconds, the damage dealt by you and your pet is increased by 20%. Generates 50 Focus. 1.5 minute cooldown.
  - New Talent: Savagery – Takedown cooldown reduced by 15/30 seconds.
  - New Talent: Shower of Blood – Your bleed effects deal 8/16% increased damage.
  - New Talent: Two Against Many – Strike as One damages 2 additional enemies and its damage is increased by 15% for each enemy it strikes.
  - New Talent: Mongoose Fury – Raptor Strike increases the damage of Raptor Strike by 10% for 8 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap.
    - Developers’ notes: In Midnight, we’re looking to distance Survival from the demands and cognitive load of Mongoose Bite/Mongoose Fury and move that complexity into new and more exciting parts of their kit. The unique animations for Mongoose Bite have been preserved with this change.
  - New Talent: Shrapnel Bomb – Wildfire Bomb’s periodic effect is now a Bleed. Choice node with Flamebreak.
  - New Talent: Flamebreak – All fire damage dealt is increased by 15%. Choice node with Shrapnel Bomb.
  - New Talent: Flamefang Pitch – Toss a fiery concoction that explodes violently upon reaching its destination, dealing heavy Fire damage to enemies in its area. After landing, your Flamefang Pitch ignites nearby terrain, dealing moderate damage to enemies in its area over 8 seconds.
  - New Talent: Wildfire Imbuement – Throwing your Flamefang Pitch imbues your weapon with flame, causing you and your pet’s damaging attacks and abilities to deal additional Fire damage for 10 seconds.
  - New Talent: Wallop – Gaining a stack of Mongoose Fury has a 20% chance to increase the damage of your next Raptor Strike by 50%. Choice node with Bloody Claws.
  - New Talent: Boomstick – Unload a series of 4 shotgun blasts in front of you, dealing heavy Physical damage over 3 seconds. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
    - Developers’ notes: In Midnight, we’re reintroducing one-handed weapons to Survival Hunters and distancing Survival from its spear-only identity. As such, we’re updating Fury of the Eagle to better match this new direction for Survival Hunters.
  - New Talent: Shellshock – Your Boomstick’s damage is increased by 40% when striking a single target. Each additional target reduces this bonus by 8%.
  - New Talent: Mongoose Rounds – Each time you fire your Boomstick, gain 1 stack of Mongoose Fury. Choice node with Wildfire Shells.
  - New Talent: Wildfire Shells – Each time you fire your Boomstick, reduce the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb by 4 seconds. Choice node with Mongoose Rounds.
  - New Talent: Lethal Calibration – Throwing a Wildfire Bomb increases your critical strike damage by 15% for 12 seconds.
  - New Talent: Wildfire Tar – Wildfire Bomb now deals its periodic damage over 6 additional seconds. Enemies affected by your Wildfire Bomb’s periodic damage take 15% increased damage from your pet.
  - New Talent: Sticky Bombs – When Wildfire Bomb explodes, it leaves behind a sticky bomb on its primary target, exploding for moderate Fire damage after a short delay. Damage reduced beyond 8 targets.
  - New Talent: Bonding – Mastery increased by 3%. You gain 5% increased Mastery from all Mastery sources.
  - Guerilla Tactics has been updated – Now increases initial explosion damage by 15% (was 50%).
    - Developers’ notes: We’re reducing the giant modifier on this talent and baking it into the spell baseline.
  - Flanked has been updated – Now causes Takedown to strike 4 additional nearby targets, deal 50% increased damage, and increases your attack speed by 100% for its duration.
  - Bloody Claws has been updated – Each stack of Mongoose Fury also increases the damage of Strike as One by 10%. Choice node with Wallop.
  - Lunge has been updated – Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction reduced to 0.5 seconds (was 1 second).
  - Tip of the Spear has been updated – Now increases Raptor Strike’s damage by 15% and reduces its Focus cost by 5.
  - Sic ‘Em has been updated – When Kill Command critically strikes, it bleeds your target for additional damage over 5 seconds.
  - Outland Venom has been updated – Now increases critical strike damage by 4% (was 2%).
  - Grenade Juggler has been updated – Throwing a Flamefang Pitch grants 1 charge of Wildfire Bomb. Flamefang Pitch damage increased by 30%.
  - Explosives Expert has been updated – Now also increases Flamefang Pitch damage by 5/10%.
  - Killer Companion has been updated – Now increases all pet damage by 10/20%.
  - Quick Shot renamed to Quick Toss and has been updated – Now casts Hatchet Toss when it triggers instead of Arcane Shot.
  - Kill Command now replaces Steady Shot when learned in the Survival specialization tree.
  - Wildfire Bomb initial damage increased by 55%. Now deals 40% increased damage to its primary target (was 80%).
  - Raptor Strike now costs 40 Focus.
  - Butchery damage increased by 60% and now has a 12 second cooldown. Cooldown reduced by Haste.
  - Wildfire Bomb no longer has a Focus cost.
  - Kill Command no longer has a cooldown.
  - Improved Wildfire Bomb is now a 2-point node.
  - The following talents have been removed:
    - Alpha Predator
    - Bombardier
    - Born to Kill
    - Butchery
    - Contagious Reagents
    - Coordinated Assault
    - Cull the Herd
    - Deadly Duo
    - Flanking Strike
      - Developers’ notes: Flanking Strike’s visuals and functionality have been baked into Takedown.
    - Fury of the Eagle
    - Grenade Juggler
    - Merciless Blow
    - Mongoose Bite
    - Ranger
    - Relentless Primal Ferocity
    - Ruthless Marauder
    - Spearhead
    - Sulfur-Lined Pockets
    - Symbiotic Adrenaline
    - Tactical Advantage
    - Terms of Engagement
    - Viper’s Venom

Midnight Alpha Test development notes continued in the next post.

Midnight Beta Test Development Notes