World of Warcraft & WOW CLASSIC – December 2021 Patch Notes

Introduction

In the latest patch notes for the popular game, players will be thrilled to know that Baine Bloodhoof has made a triumphant return to Thunder Bluff. After a previous issue prevented snowballs from being thrown at him during the Feast of Winter Veil, players can now pelt him with snowballs to their heart's content. It's a festive way to show their appreciation for the beloved character.

DECEMBER 17, 2021

Creatures and NPCs

Baine Bloodhoof can once again be found in Thunder Bluff.

The Feast of Winter Veil

Fixed an issue that prevented snowballs from being thrown at Baine Bloodhoof.

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Items and Rewards

Au'Dara in Oribos now sells the Incense of Infinity for 500 gold. Use the Incense at your Forge of Bonds to learn all conduits and increase the item level of all conduits in your collection up to 200. This item is bound to account, and can be purchased once you have obtained Renown 80 on any character. Note: Your character must be level 60 to use the Incense, as the Conduit system is not available until then.

WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery

On Season of Mastery realms, the Unseen spirits in Duskwood will now reveal themselves when someone is brave enough to disturb them.

DECEMBER 15, 2021

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Mage Tower
  - The Highlord's Return
    - Blood Death Knight, Vengeance Demon Hunter, and Guardian Druid
      - Nether Storm no longer recasts immediately after being silenced or interrupted.
    - Guardian Druid
      - Reduced the size of Inquisitor Variss' Aura of Decay by 0.5 yards.
  - Thwarting the Twins
    - Fixed an issue where players could get out of range of Raest Magespear's spells. Raest Magespear's damage bonus when Karam Magespear is defeated first has been reduced to compensate for the change.
    - Fixed an issue that caused enemies summoned during the encounter to despawn prematurely.

Player versus Player

Fixed an issue that caused Spoils of War (increased Honor and Conquest gain) to be removed from the player on death.

WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery

Hallowed Brazier can once again be purchased on Classic Era realms.

DECEMBER 14, 2021

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Legion Timewalking (including the weekly quest, dungeon queue, Mythic+, and Mage Tower components) will now run for two additional weeks, ending on January 4th (in NA).
Halls of Atonement
- Halkias
  - Player immunities should no longer make the player susceptible to Sinlight Visions.

Player versus Player

Spoils of War now increases Honor gains by 40%, in addition to increasing Conquest gains by 25%.
- Developers’ note: Honor gains lagged behind Conquest gear acquisition after enabling Spoils of War. This change matches the 25% gain in Conquest, with a little extra to give players just starting out easier access to gear late in the season.

Burning Crusade Classic

Fixed an issue where players would be saved to Tempest Keep before defeating any bosses.
Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern are now in their post-nerf state (Original Burning Crusade version 2.4.3).
- Attunements are no longer required to gain entry into Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern.
- Lady Vashj's bridge console in Serpentshrine Cavern can now be activated without having to defeat any other bosses.
- The doorway to Keal’thas Sunstrider’s room is now immediately open without needing to defeat other bosses.

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Mage Tower
  - Guardian Druid
    - The change made to the Nether Horror's ability to cast while moving has been reverted.
      - Developers’ note: When we were looking into Guardian Druid difficulty we thought that by making the Nether Horrors stop to cast their spell we'd make it a little easier by creating some more time to react to them; but it turns out we were wrong and we made it harder. So, we're reverting that change to back to the way it was (which is once again identical to the way it was in Legion).
  - Holy Priest
    - Corrupted Risen Soldier damage reduced by 30%.
- Timeworn Mythic+
  - Eye of Azshara
    - Players can now interrupt Binder Ashioi's Magic Binding spell.
  - Vault of the Wardens
    - Tirathon Saltheril
      - Darkstrikes damage reduced by 25%.

Items and Rewards

[With realm restarts] Various trinkets from Legion dungeons now split their damage between all enemies struck, and deal increased damage for each enemy struck, up to 5 enemies. Additionally, their damage has also been increased. Tooltips will be updated in a future patch to reflect the new functionality.
- The following trinkets damage increased by 50%:
  - Windscar Whetstone
  - Giant Ornamental Pearl
  - Corrupted Starlight
  - Caged Horror
- The following trinket's damage increased by 500%:
  - Mark of Dargrul
[With realm restarts] Gems found in Burning Crusade Heroic dungeons now scale properly with character level.
[With realm restarts] Fixed a scaling issue with several Legacy weapon modifications (sharpening stones, weightstones, and enchantments such as Major Striking) that added flat damage to weapons, causing these modifications to be much more powerful than intended.

WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery

Thrash Blade, Carrot on a Stick, and Rune of the Guard Captain are now Unique-Equipped items.
- Developers’ note: The ability for players to get another copy of Trash Blade, Carrot on a Stick, or Rune of the Guard Captain was meant to exist only as a means to restore a lost or deleted iconic quest reward without contacting Customer Support. Equipping two copies of the item was unintentional. If you had two copies of these items equipped, the second copy should be pushed into your inventory. If you happen to have a full inventory at the time of this change and the item is missing, if you free up an inventory slot and log in and out of the game then the missing item will reappear in the open slot.

DECEMBER 10, 2021

Classes

Warlock
- Demonology
  - Fixed an issue where Shard of Annihilation (Runecarving Power) was also affecting Shadow Bolt critical strike chance and damage.

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Mage Tower
  - End of the Risen Threat Encounter
    - Corrupted Risen Mages now wait 1 to 2 seconds before they can start casting Arcane Blitz.
    - Arcane Blitz damage bonus is now 40% per stack (was 50%).
    - Arcane Blitz cast time now increased by 0.5 seconds and increases by another 0.5 seconds for each bonus damage stack on the caster. The duration of the damage buff has been increased by 1 second to compensate.
    - Arcane Blitz has a new visual state effect added to make it even "louder."
  - Xylem Encounter
    - Comet Storm now waits 3 seconds before damaging players (was 2 seconds).
  - Blood Death Knight
    - Kruul health reduced by 10%.
  - Frost Death Knight
    - Archmage Xylem’s Corrupting Shadows health reduced by 3%.
    - Archmage Xylem’s Razor Ice health reduced by 10%.
  - Havoc Demon Hunter
    - Archmage Xylem’s Arcane Barrage and Frostbolt damage reduced by 5%.
    - Archmage Xylem’s Comet Storm damage reduced by 14%.
  - Guardian Druid
    - Kruul health reduced by 10%.
    - Nether Horror health reduced by 10%.
    - Nether Horror’s Nether Storm now has movement and melee combat interrupts.
  - Protection Paladin
    - Kruul health reduced by 10%.
    - Tormenting Eye health reduced by 10%.
    - Smoldering Infernals now cast Smash every 6 seconds (was 5 seconds).
  - Holy Priest
    - Corrupted Risen Mage’s health reduced by 10%.
    - Corrupted Risen Soldier’s Knife Dance damage reduced by 10%.
  - Restoration Shaman
    - Corrupted Risen Soldier damage reduced by 10%.
    - Corrupted Risen Soldier’s Knife Dance damage reduced by 10%.
    - Corrupted Risen Mage’s damage reduced by 10%.

Items and Rewards

Fixed an issue causing the Soaring Spelltome mount to be removed from accounts on login. For those affected, the mount will be restored when logging in after being logged off for several hours.

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Mage Tower
  - The Legionfall Commander buff is no longer incorrectly applied inside the tower.
  - Fixed a bug that caused the Endless Tincture of Renewed Combat trinket to provide significantly more healing than intended, when defeating multiple enemies.
    - Developers’ note: While we want to be as permissive as possible with gear choices in the Mage Tower challenge, this trinket was too powerful to leave unadjusted.
  - Fixed a scaling bug with the Crusader weapon enchantment, it should now scale like other similar enchantments.
  - Fixed an issue where Karam Magespear could fail to summon Hands from Beyond during the Thwarting the Twins encounter.

DECEMBER 8, 2021

Dungeons and Raids

Timewalking
- Mage Tower
  - Death and Decay will no longer grant the Death's Due on-hit effects for Night Fae Death Knights.
  - Fixed an issue that allowed Survival Hunters to trivialize the Xylem encounter.
Mythic+ Affixes
- Infernal (Timeworn Mythic+)
  - Players can now have more than one instance of Infernal Core active.

Items and Rewards

Legion equipment sold during Timewalking no longer requires level 60 to purchase.

DECEMBER 6, 2021

Items and Rewards

The Harsh Tutelage buff from Jaithys, the Prison Blade now extends its own duration if it triggers again at the same power level while it's already active, up to a maximum duration of 9 seconds.

Player versus Player

Paladin
- Protection
  - [With realm restarts] Word of Glory's additional healing on friendly targets provided by Hand of the Protector (Talent) has been reduced by 80% when engaged in PvP combat.

WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery

Fixed an issue where the Gnomish Death Ray trinket was not firing a giant death ray.
Molten Core
- Magmadar
  - Fixed an issue where Lava Bombs and Core Hounds weren't despawning properly when the encounter resets or is completed.

DECEMBER 3, 2021

Classes

Druid
- Thorns (PvP Talent) will now properly deal damage and slow attackers movement speed when cast on an ally.

Dungeons and Raids

Sanctum of Domination
- Fixed an issue where the Eye of the Jailer encounter user interface could persist when using the skip to the Kel’Thuzad and Sylvanas Windrunner encounters.

Items and Rewards

Fixed an issue which caused Shard of Tel to often fail to find a friendly target to apply its shield to if it was triggered by a damaging ability.

Burning Crusade Classic

Player versus Player
- Greater and Lesser Rune of Warding no longer activate in the arena if applied before entering.

WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery

Dungeons and Raids
- Sunken Temple
  - Non-boss elite enemies now gain Soulflayer's Fervor over time, granting Snare Immunity, Root Immunity, and Increased Movement Speed. Crowd control abilities like stuns, fears, shackles, polymorphs etc. will reset Soulflayer's Fervor.

DECEMBER 1, 2021

Classes

Priest
- Fixed an issue where Pallid Command (Runecarving Power) would not trigger on hit and was instead triggering on cast.
- Shadow
  - Fixed an issue where two Rattling Mages summoned from Pallid Command (Runecarving Power) could spawn unintentionally.
  - Fixed an issue where canceling the Pallid Command aura would not despawn the Rattling Mage.