Runemaster changes combat identity, not just its numbers
The changelog explains it in detail itself: the Runemaster’s Weapon Engraving rework aims to widen build diversity, not stack percentages. Each element gains its own combat identity, and certain targeted combinations are now rewarded against specific enemies.
- What’s happeningA complete rework of the Runemaster’s Weapon Engravings, designed to widen the number of viable builds.
- What changes for youEach elemental engraving gains its own identity, with cross-synergies and targeted combinations rewarded, like Ice and Wind against Ragnaros.
- What’s waiting on the restartSeveral major classes have most of their changes on hold until the next realm restart.
- Why nowThe team is also keeping a close eye on Barbarian and Cultist, both adjusted over the preceding days.
Messages collected from the official Changelog channel on the Ascension Discord, August 9 through 15, 2026.
Ascension published a new wave of fixes to Conquest of Azeroth, from August 9 through 15, 2026. Sixteen of twenty-one classes are affected, and the trend is nearly unanimous: fifteen of them come out with a Net buff verdict, and only one — Pyromancer — stays Balanced. This patch isn’t a rebalance in the classic sense; it’s an almost across-the-board power increase.
One thing to keep in mind before getting into the details: a good chunk of these changes isn’t live yet. Barbarian (eleven lines out of eleven), Witch Hunter (nine out of ten), Sun Cleric (four out of five), and Pyromancer (four out of four) have most — sometimes all — of their changes on hold until the next realm restart. Watch for the ○ marker in each section: it points to exactly what isn’t live yet.
The main undertaking is Runemaster. Its Weapon Engraving rework doesn’t just add numbers: each element — Ice, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Arcane — gains its own combat identity, with cross-engraving synergies and targeted combinations rewarded, like Ice and Wind against Ragnaros. That’s what puts it at the top of the index, ahead of Primalist, which actually gets the biggest numbers pass of the patch (fifty-nine lines) without fundamentally changing how it’s played.
To place each class before digging into the details, the Ascension CoA tier list and the talent builder remain the best starting points. Patch source: the official Changelog channel on the Ascension Discord.
How to read this article
General changes
This batch gathers seven days’ worth of cleanup fixes that don’t belong to a single class: vulnerability adjustments on three Molten Core bosses (Basalthane, Lucifron, and Ragnaros’ emerge phase, revised twice in a row), several healing spell reworks (Mojo Beam, Loa’s Brew, Heat Wave, Kael’s Command), an across-the-board 15% reduction to PvP healing, and a cleanup of bugs affecting Haste, pets, or the display of threat tooltips. Most of it leans toward the positive — bugs fixed in the player’s favor, healing numbers raised, new gear options — but three lines go the other way, notably the removal of an exploit on Burning Demeanor and the overall drop in PvP healing.
One piece of information deserves its own read, since it directly changes the composition you should favor on Majordomo (Molten Core): his adds no longer resist Physical or Magic damage, but Melee or Spell damage instead. In practice, an add that used to block Physical damage now blocks Melee damage — so attacks from Reaper, Knight of Xoroth, and the like — while an add that used to block Magic damage now blocks Spell damage, which affects classes like Pyromancer or Necromancer. Ranged damage (Barbarian on Headhunting, Ranger on Archery, Starcaller on Sentinel) is never reduced on this fight, no matter which add is targeted — enough to plug composition gaps without having to juggle damage schools.
August 15 adds its own batch of actionable news. On the rewards side, weekly Mythic Caches and Mythic Coins both increase significantly — and retroactively, meaning an immediate catch-up at the next restart rather than a gain that would only count from now on. Once again on Molten Core, Ragnaros gets his emerge phase moved up a second time (now 30% health instead of 40%, with no change to his total HP) — so the raid gets an even longer execute window than announced the day before. The Runemaster’s Weapon Engraving system also receives a broad rework: the per-element breakdown is covered in its own section of this article, but it’s worth flagging here as one of the patch’s most structural undertakings. Finally, Wildvine becomes much easier to gather, both in the open world and in Zul’Gurub.
Twenty lines in this section are flagged “○ Not live yet”: they’re waiting on the next realm restart before they actually apply in game.
What goes up
- ▲Killing Ascended Ragnaros now rewards the title “Firelord, Name”.
- ▲Wrath of Cenarius can now be upgraded, similarly to Worldforged items. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed a bug for Wildwalker where some pets were “unhappy” and dealing less damage as a result — all pets are happy now.
- ▲Thunderfury has been updated: you can now swap between 3 versions of the weapon, a 2.6 speed, a 1.9 speed (the original), or a 1.4 speed.
- ▲Loa’s Brew (Loa’s Brew) gets a new mechanic: healing the same target in rapid succession increases its healing by 50%, and healing a different target passes 50% of the healing to the last healed target. Its base value increases by 48% and its healing coefficient goes from 60% to 84%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Netherstrike now generates 20 insanity, up from 10.
- ▲Basalthane is now nearly as vulnerable to Arcane damage as he is to frost damage, resulting in an increase of over 10% to all Arcane damage done on that fight. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Kael’s Command now heals for about 989 per tick instead of 484, and its healing coefficient goes from 0.35 to 0.728 — finally worthy of its 2 minute cooldown. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Moon Guard now also increases your Health by an amount equal to 10% of your maximum Mana. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed a bug where Decomposition wasn’t correctly benefiting from Haste: every full 1 second of duration added (roughly 4.4% haste) now adds one more tick.
- ▲Lucifron is now nearly as vulnerable to Arcane damage as he is to Holy damage, resulting in an increase of over 15% to all Arcane damage done on that fight. ○ Not live yet
- ▲The Knight of Xoroth’s Darkrider talent now increases your spell penetration by 1.25 per level, up to 75 at max level. ○ Not live yet
- ▲PvP trinkets now remove all forms of crowd control: all movement-impairing effects, disarms, silences, and any effect causing a loss of control of your character. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed an error in the Challenge System that was spamming the client’s error log and causing FPS drops.
- ▲Splash On ’Em now triggers on cast for the Loa’s Brew portion of the spell, rather than on the effective heal — which had a travel time. ○ Not live yet
- ▲The number of Mythic Caches obtainable each week is doubled. This is retroactive: you’ll have more to open right at the next restart. ○ Not live yet
- ▲The number of Mythic Coins obtainable each week increases by 50%, also retroactively. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Ice Engraving gains 30% increased critical strike chance against targets affected by your Fire Engraving.
- ▲Fire Engraving’s proc chance increases from 30% to 60% while Air Engraving is active.
- ▲Air Engraving’s damage replication increases from 30% to 60% against targets affected by your Icebound Momentum.
- ▲Earth Engraving deals an additional 10% damage per target hit while Air Engraving is active.
- ▲The amount of Wildvine gatherable in the open world increases by 200%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Wildvine now has a 1% chance to drop from every mob inside Zul’Gurub (ZG).
- ▲Fixed a bug where Heat Wave wasn’t properly splitting its healing. It can now also land a critical strike and trigger effects. ○ Not live yet
What goes down
- ▼Manafeed now heals for 50% more per tick, but now triggers every 2 seconds instead of every 0.5, for a duration extended to 6 seconds from 5 — and above all, the spell can now be interrupted and is subject to spell pushback. Fewer ticks despite more generous ones, and a real loss of reliability in tight fights. ○ Not live yet
- ▼Healing and absorption effects are reduced by 15% in PvP combat.
- ▼Fixed a bug where a spell called Burning Demeanor could trigger during Flameweaving.
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Mojo Beam now heals for 30% less, but now heals every 0.7 seconds instead of every 1 second — meaning you can hit more targets, faster. The change is a net gain once you have 3 or more targets to heal. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Splash On ’Em is reworked: effective healing done by Mojo Beam now reduces the cooldown of Potion Toss and Splash Potion by 1 second, and effective healing done by Loa’s Brew reduces the cooldown of Mojo Beam by 2 seconds. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Jungle Secrets and Splash On ’Em now swap places in the talent tree. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Developer’s note: this brings the chance to trigger Fired Up to 70% thanks to Roasted Alive — the same as if you had both talents — and fixes an unintended behavior.
- ◆Majordomo’s Inferno Aegis now “accumulates” the damage and deals it over 4 seconds, like an ignite, instead of all at once — the mechanic now leaves more room to counter-play.
- ◆Ragnaros’ “Too Soon” emerge phase now begins at 40% health instead of 50%. He keeps the same amount of HP between 40% and 0% as before: this change simply lengthens the window during which he’s in execute range. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Heat Wave has been reworked: it no longer always heals 5 targets by splitting the heal evenly — it now ignores pets and guardians and prioritizes the lowest-HP targets, healing them more. It also now triggers from healing done by your Holy Form. As a result, it heals for 60% less in PvP. ○ Not live yet
- ◆There is now a 100 millisecond delay between each corpse exploded by Corpse Explosion — exploding them all at once was causing FPS drops. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Damage tier of a mechanic left unnamed in the changelog: 100% damage up to 1x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Next tier: 50% damage up to 3x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Next tier: 33% damage up to 5x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Next tier: 25% damage up to 10x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Next tier: 20% damage up to 15x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Next tier: 10% damage up to 20x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Last tier: 5% damage beyond 20x the caster’s HP.
- ◆Stated goal of this rework: weaken this mechanic in 20-player raids, while strengthening it everywhere else.
- ◆Tooltips for Tank Stance abilities that increase threat generation are fixed: the additional threat percentage generated by a specific school now shows the actual additional amount generated, rather than the total amount generated.
- ◆Majordomo’s adds (Molten Core) are reworked: they no longer take reduced Physical or Magic damage, but reduced Melee or Spell damage instead.
- ◆In practice: an add that used to resist Physical damage now resists Melee damage instead — so every hit from Reaper, Knight of Xoroth, and similar classes is reduced against that target. An add that used to resist Magic damage now resists Spell damage instead, which affects classes like Pyromancer or Necromancer.
- ◆Ranged damage from classes like Barbarian (Headhunting spec), Ranger (Archery spec), or Starcaller (Sentinel spec) is unaffected — they can fill in any composition gaps on this fight.
- ◆The Runemaster’s Weapon Engraving system receives a broad rework aimed at diversifying builds: damage and scaling are retuned, each element gains its own combat identity, and the system is now tied to the creature RPG overhaul to reward relevant engraving combinations depending on the enemy (for example Ice + Air against Ragnaros). The full breakdown is covered in this article’s Runemaster section.
- ◆Ragnaros now starts at 30% health instead of 40% — his total HP is unchanged, only the window during which he’s in this phase gets longer.
Runemaster
Net buffWith 42 lines, the Runemaster receives the second-largest wave of changes in this patch, and it isn’t a pile of minor tweaks: it’s a structural rework touching both its signature weapon and its elemental engraving system. The tally leaves no room for doubt — 35 improvements against just 2 pullbacks, both limited to PvP — which explains the net buff verdict despite the scale of the changes.
At the heart of the patch is Runeblade: all eleven ranks get roughly a 30% damage increase, and its Attack Power scaling climbs from 12.5% to 30%, with 30% Spell Power scaling now added on top — the spell becomes just as solid in a hybrid build as in a pure physical one. Residual Power also doubles the contribution of Air Engraving and now makes it grant attack speed too, reinforcing that combo further.
The Weapon Engravings system is undergoing a full rework. Ice Engraving now applies Icebound Momentum, a stack of up to 8 charges that adds Frost damage to every attack — but switching engravings or engraved weapons wipes those charges, a real cost to versatility. Water Engraving is redesigned into a mana theft followed by proportional Frost damage, and Arcane Engraving drops its reduced-healing-received effect in favor of a mark that punishes healing with delayed Arcane damage. A new level 50 talent, Expansive Engraver, finally ties these elements together with cross-element synergies — for instance, Ice Engraving gains bonus critical strike chance against targets already marked by Fire Engraving.
The rest of the list is a broad rebalancing pass across the class’s rune arsenal: nineteen spells, from Hoarfrost to Primordial Salvos, get their base damage and scaling increased by roughly 13 to 15% against monsters. The section’s only two pullbacks are targeted and strictly PvP: Palm Sigil: Fire loses 10% damage in PvP, and the class’s overall damage there drops by 8%.
One last line of this changelog arrived truncated on Discord and its subject is unreadable: the cut took the spell’s name with it, only a decorative emoji survived, and the information cannot be reconstructed. It will be flagged if the studio republishes it. Outside that case, no change in this section carries the « not live yet » marker: everything is already live in game.
What goes up
- ▲Residual Power: now doubles the contribution of Air Engraving, and also causes it to grant attack speed.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 1: damage increased from 16 to 21.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 2: damage increased from 31 to 41.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 3: damage increased from 40 to 53.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 4: damage increased from 52 to 69.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 5: damage increased from 64 to 85.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 6: damage increased from 79 to 105.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 7: damage increased from 97 to 129.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 8: damage increased from 153 to 203.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 9: damage increased from 189 to 251.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 10: damage increased from 218 to 290.
- ▲Runeblade, Rank 11: damage increased from 259 to 344.
- ▲Runeblade: AP scaling increased from 12.5% to 30%, with 30% SP scaling now added on top.
- ▲Air Engraving: now also passively increases haste, by 10%.
- ▲Expansive Engraver: new talent, the new level 50 passive for Weapon Engravings, adding cross-element synergies.
- ▲Hoarfrost: base damage and scaling increased by 13.5% against monsters.
- ▲Glyphic Ruin: base damage and scaling increased by 14.1% against monsters.
- ▲Fist of the Ancients: base damage and scaling increased by 13.9% against monsters.
- ▲Primordial Pulse: base damage and scaling increased by 14.2% against monsters.
- ▲Wild Steam: base damage and scaling increased by 14.7% against monsters.
- ▲Earthen Winds: base damage and scaling increased by 13.6% against monsters.
- ▲Rune of Resonance: base damage and scaling increased by 14.8% against monsters.
- ▲Convergence: base damage and scaling increased by 14.5% against monsters.
- ▲Turbulence and Turbulent Spiral: base damage and scaling increased by 15.4% against monsters.
- ▲Sigil Strike: base damage and scaling increased by 14.2% against monsters.
- ▲Sorcerer’s Cage: base damage and scaling increased by 12.8% against monsters.
- ▲Manuscription: base damage and scaling increased by 14.6% against monsters.
- ▲Hurricane: base damage and scaling increased by 15.2% against monsters.
- ▲Rune of Impermanence: base damage and scaling increased by 13.8% against monsters.
- ▲Earth and Water: base damage and scaling increased by 13.7% against monsters.
- ▲Fists of Power: base damage and scaling increased by 13.4% against monsters.
- ▲Magic Etchings: base damage and scaling increased by 13.9% against monsters.
- ▲Primordial Fury: base damage and scaling increased by 14.4% against monsters.
- ▲Primordial Salvos: base damage and scaling increased by 14.7% against monsters.
What goes down
- ▼Palm Sigil: Fire: damage reduced by 10% in PvP.
- ▼All Runemaster damage reduced by 8% in PvP.
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Ice Engraving: now applies Icebound Momentum to the target, at most once every 5 seconds per target.
- ◆Icebound Momentum: lasts 12 seconds and stacks up to 8 times; each stack causes all direct and periodic damage dealt by the Runemaster who applied it to also deal additional Frost damage.
- ◆Switching Weapon Engravings, or swapping an already-engraved weapon, now removes all Icebound Momentum stacks applied by that Runemaster.
- ◆Water Engraving: reworked — it now steals a percentage of the target’s maximum mana, restores the mana actually stolen, and deals Frost damage proportional to the amount stolen.
- ◆Arcane Engraving: reworked — it no longer reduces healing received; it now marks the target for 5 seconds and, when the mark expires, deals Arcane damage equal to 30% of the effective healing received during it.
Primalist
Net buffThe Primalist receives by far the biggest overhaul of this patch: 59 lines, almost all concentrated on the earth/seismic damage spells. The overall tone leaves no doubt: 57 out of 59 changes go in the player’s favor.
The heart of the rework is a damage increase on every rank of the four main offensive spells. Stoneshard gains between 25 and 30% across its nine ranks, Geode Barrage and its spell power scaling (23% → 36%) follow the same trend, Seismic Spike sees its damage nearly double on its highest ranks, and Seismic Crash explodes outright: some ranks more than double, with a spell power scaling that also climbs from 10% to 20%. Seismic Tremor benefits from a higher periodic power scaling and a general 17% increase to its spell power scaling, sees its damage over time double on five ranks, on top of a bug fix that restores its increasing damage at the final tick (up to 200% more than before on the last tick).
The talents that scale these spells follow suit: the per-stack bonus from Earthshaping doubles on Stoneshard and Terrasurge, Volcanic Blast also doubles its first two ranks, and Lithic Lance gains both spell power and base damage. On the comfort and survival side, Journey to the Core loses its internal cooldown while hitting twice as many targets for more damage, Stoneskin gains a reduction to damage taken, and Heavy Earth lasts longer.
Only two lines go against the trend. The Rage generation bug fix on Stoneshard ranks 8/9 and Terrasurge ranks 7/8/9 is a genuine nerf: these ranks were effectively free to cast, they now actually cost the resource. Geomolding, meanwhile, changes in nature rather than simply going up or down: half as many charges required (10 instead of 20), but a higher bonus cap (100% versus 60%) for a higher Rage cost per charge — the pace of scaling changes, even though the final potential improves.
Two last lines concern tank survivability and won’t take effect until the next realm restart: Heart of the Mountain generates more threat, and a bug that prevented the instant threat gain at the start of combat for the Mountain King identity is fixed.
What goes up
- ▲Everlasting Rage now adds 6 sec to the duration of Seismic Tremor up from 5 sec.
- ▲Stoneskin now also reduces your damage taken by 3/6%.
- ▲Journey to the Core no longer has a 3 sec ICD and the crag spawned from it now has a 10 target cap increased from 5 and its damage dealt has been increased by 55%.
- ▲Fixed a bug where Seismic Tremor was not properly increasing its damage as it continued to tick, increasing its output by ~100-200% at the final ticks from previous values.
- ▲One With The Earth value increased to 25% from 20%.
- ▲Volcanic Blast Ranks 1 and 2 increased to 20/40% per rank up from 10/20%.
- ▲Heavy Earth duration increased to 10 sec from 8 sec.
- ▲Stoneshard now deals 5% increased damage per Earthshaping stack up from 4%.
- ▲Terrasurge now deals 10% increased damage per Earthshaping stack, up from 5%.
- ▲Increased the spell power scaling of Lithic Lance by 66% and its base damage by 26%.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 1 flat damage increased from 44-59 to 57-77.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 2 flat damage increased from 95-116 to 123-151.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 3 flat damage increased from 194-227 to 252-295.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 4 flat damage increased from 311-355 to 404-462.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 5 flat damage increased from 403-459 to 524-597.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 6 flat damage increased from 526-595 to 684-774.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 7 flat damage increased from 623-707 to 810-920.
- ▲Seismic Tremor periodic spell power scaling increased by an additional 10%.
- ▲Seismic Tremor spell power scaling increased by 17%.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 1 damage increased from 10-11 to 13-15.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 2 damage increased from 17-19 to 21-24.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 3 damage increased from 29-30 to 37-39.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 4 damage increased from 51-54 to 65-69.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 5 damage increased from 80-85 to 102-109.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 6 damage increased from 105-112 to 134-143.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 7 damage increased from 130-140 to 166-179.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 8 damage increased from 160-174 to 205-223.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 9 damage increased from 207-230 to 265-295.
- ▲Geode Barrage Rank 10 damage increased from 290-338 to 371-433.
- ▲Geode Barrage spell power scaling increased from 23% to 36%.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 8 flat damage increased from 697-713 to 906-927.
- ▲Stoneshard Rank 9 flat damage increased from 882-898 to 1146-1167.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 1 damage increased from 58-61 to 113-119.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 2 damage increased from 79-84 to 154-164.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 3 damage increased from 109-117 to 213-228.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 4 damage increased from 153-165 to 298-322.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 5 damage increased from 212-230 to 413-449.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 6 damage increased from 296-322 to 577-628.
- ▲Seismic Spike Rank 7 damage increased from 413-492 to 805-959.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 1 base damage increased from 10 to 27.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 2 base damage increased from 28 to 71.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 3 base damage increased from 50 to 127.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 4 base damage increased from 70 to 177.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 5 base damage increased from 76 to 191.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 6 base damage increased from 110 to 277.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 7 base damage increased from 134 to 337.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 8 base damage increased from 154 to 387.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 9 base damage increased from 155 to 389.
- ▲Seismic Crash Rank 10 base damage increased from 177 to 445.
- ▲Seismic Crash Spell Power scaling increased from 10% to 20%.
- ▲Seismic Tremor Rank 1 damage over time increased from 55 to 110.
- ▲Seismic Tremor Rank 2 damage over time increased from 104 to 208.
- ▲Seismic Tremor Rank 3 damage over time increased from 143 to 286.
- ▲Seismic Tremor Rank 4 damage over time increased from 197 to 394.
- ▲Seismic Tremor Rank 5 damage over time increased from 265 to 530.
- ▲Heart of the Mountain now grants 150% threat, up from 125%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed a bug where Tank’s « Snap Threat » was not working for Mountain King. Many tanks have a massive boost in threat the moment they get in combat with a mob — this was not working for Mountain King. ○ Not live yet
What goes down
- ▼Fixed a major bug where Stoneshard ranks 8/9 and Terrasurge ranks 7/8/9 were generating Rage on damage dealt, meaning they effectively had no Rage cost.
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Geomolding now stacks 10 times down from 20, but now gives 10% increased Terrasurge damage per stack up from 3% and increases its rage cost by 3 per stack up from 2.
Cultist
Net buffThe Cultist receives the second-biggest wave of changes in this patch, with 42 lines spread across two days (August 12 then August 15). The overall tone is clear: 29 out of 42 changes go in the player’s favor, against only 3 setbacks.
The heart of the wave is reinforced damage across almost the entire offensive branch: Ancient Curse sees its initial damage jump by 300% and its expiration damage by 75%, Twilight Shieldtoss gains damage across its seven ranks, and Void Shield, Wrath of the Black Empire, Void-Enhanced Shield and Crushing Dissonance follow the same trend. Several defensive and utility talents also gain in comfort: Entropic Retaliation and Inner Darkness now trigger on any avoided attack rather than blocks only, and a bug that made Worrisome Idol nearly useless (1% of missing mana recovered instead of 10%) is fixed.
The only three setbacks concern one specific combo: Dread and Terror now pass on less damage to Eldritch Shock, and Ancient Curse loses its damage-taken debuff on the target. But this same spell also sees its own damage strongly increased, which largely offsets the loss of that utility — hence these three lines being classed as minor setbacks rather than a real blow to the class.
The rest of the batch reorganizes the tree without touching the numbers: several talent pairs swap places, two spells are renamed without changing function (Horrorbolt Volley becomes Hour of Twilight, Embrace the Void becomes Teachings of Cho’gall), and the Dreadnought capstone row is redesigned. On August 15, a follow-up fix closes a real issue on Embodiment of Y’shaarj: its absorption value is now converted into Attack Power rather than Spell Power, which cuts an infinite feedback loop the old version created with Void Shield — a change in nature rather than a simple value adjustment. Only this fix and the threat boost to Twilight Domain are not live yet, pending the next realm restart. With 29 lines gaining power against three largely offset setbacks, the Cultist comes out of this patch with a net power gain; the August 15 addition doesn’t change that verdict — it’s a mechanical rework, not a measured gain or loss.
What goes up
- ▲Apocalyptic Skies procs can now critically strike.
- ▲Ancient Curse initial damage buffed by 300%.
- ▲Ancient Curse expiration damage buffed by 75%.
- ▲Godblade Cultists will now do 10% more damage.
- ▲Hammer of Twilight will now deal 10% increased damage.
- ▲Entropic Retaliation now works with all avoided attacks instead of just blocks.
- ▲Inner Darkness now works with all avoided attacks instead of just blocks.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 1 damage increased from 43 to 78.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 2 damage increased from 75 to 136.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 3 damage increased from 121 to 218.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 4 damage increased from 174 to 314.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 5 damage increased from 251 to 452.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 6 damage increased from 378 to 582.
- ▲Twilight Shieldtoss Rank 7 damage increased from 545 to 692.
- ▲General of Y’shaarj now also works with damage dealt by your Tentacles.
- ▲Inner Darkness now grants Abyssal Ward an additional charge with reduced cooldown.
- ▲Entropic Retaliation now also increases your dodge chance per stack and has been swapped with Malignant Armor.
- ▲Void-Enhanced Shield value increased to 25/50% up from 20/40%.
- ▲Worrisome Idol: fixed a bug where the mana regeneration was scaling with your spell power. As a result, the mana regeneration was extremely low. It now gives 10% of your missing mana every 10 sec, up from 1%.
- ▲Crushing Dissonance now has a 3 sec duration up from 2 sec.
- ▲Increased the damage scaling of Tentacles of Y’shaarj by 40%.
- ▲Boon of Y’shaarj now also grants health equal to 400% of your intellect.
- ▲Eldritch Bastion now also gives a 5/10% chance on Shadow Damage dealt to reset the cooldown of Twilight Shieldtoss.
- ▲Strength of the Sha now also gives spell damage as a percentage of Intellect and now grants 10% of your Intellect as spell hit rating instead of 6%.
- ▲Void Tolerance has been reworked and now gives you 100% increased chance to critically block after casting Abyssal Ward.
- ▲Embodiment of Y’shaarj now also causes Dreadnought‘s absorb effect to ignore 25% of damage taken.
- ▲Void Shield spell power scaling has been increased to 200% of your spell damage, up from 60% of your healing power.
- ▲Wrath of the Black Empire spell power scaling has been increased by 20%.
- ▲Twilight Domain now grants 180% threat up from 150%, plus an additional 180% Shadow threat up from 150%. ○ Not live yet
What goes down
- ▼Dread now only grants 15% damage to Eldritch Shock, down from 30%.
- ▼Terror now only grants a 10% spell damage bonus to Eldritch Shock, down from 20%.
- ▼Ancient Curse no longer provides the 10% damage taken debuff on enemies.
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Horrorbolt Volley reworked, now called Hour of Twilight.
- ◆Swapped Bulwark of Y’shaarj and Malignant Armor.
- ◆Dreadful now instead works with your parry and dodge rating.
- ◆Swapped the positions of Twisted Seal and Lost in the Void.
- ◆Embrace the Void (Corruption Spec Tree) renamed to Teachings of Cho’gall.
- ◆Eldritch Entities swapped with Shadowy Symbiosis.
- ◆Inner Darkness swapped with Deep Secrets.
- ◆Confirms the position swap between Inner Darkness and Deep Secrets.
- ◆The Dreadnought Cultist capstone row has been repathed.
- ◆Embodiment of Y’shaarj now provides Attack Power based on absorption value instead of Spell Power. Developer’s Note: Embodiment of Y’shaarj in its previous iteration created an infinite loop of increases because your shielding became higher due to higher spell power, which raised potential of absorption of Void Shield higher, which increased the ceiling of absorption, causing the new spell power gained to be higher. Repeatedly. New version should serve its intention better, to provide offensive gain based on absorbs, as Attack Power applies to your auto attacks on top of a higher variety of offensive abilities relevant to the tank spec. We will continue to monitor the strength of Dreadnought Cultist and ensure that it continues to remain viable throughout all forms of content. ○ Not live yet
Starcaller
Net buffStarcaller gets the biggest wave of fixes of these six days: thirty-six changes, thirty-five of them going up. All three specializations are affected — Sentinel on damage and threat management, Moon Priest and Warden on their healing, and Moon Guard on its tanking durability.
Most of the volume comes from a full damage pass: all five ranks of Starcall and all seven ranks of Starsweep go up, between +25% and +40% depending on the rank, adding to increases on Second Moon, Starfire, Fury of the Stars, and Sentinel Glaive.
The same threat bug is fixed across all three specializations at once: mana gains will no longer generate threat for Sentinel, Moon Priest, and Warden, removing an annoying asymmetry in groups. The only blemish: the rework of Lunar Splinters changes the nature of its interaction with the Burning debuff rather than simply increasing it — a genuine ◆, not a ▲.
Two changes on Moon Guard — the block bonus on Moonstone Hilt and the new magic damage stagger on Shrouded Stars — like Lunar Authority earlier in the list, are still waiting on the next realm restart.
What goes up
- ▲Lunar Authority: now grants 120% threat (up from 100%), plus an additional 120% Arcane threat (up from 100%). ○ Not live yet
- ▲Starcrash: increased from 10/20% to 15/30%.
- ▲Enduring Hunt: now also increases the damage dealt by Huntress Shot and Trueshot.
- ▲Hunter’s Sight: now gives you a chance to consume no mana on your next Huntress Shot, and to increase its damage by 25%.
- ▲Starcall — Rank 1: damage increased from 91-105 to 127-147.
- ▲Starcall — Rank 2: damage increased from 165-184 to 231-258.
- ▲Starcall — Rank 3: damage increased from 204-218 to 285-305.
- ▲Starcall — Rank 4: damage increased from 267-286 to 373-400.
- ▲Starcall — Rank 5: damage increased from 342-392 to 478-548.
- ▲Second Moon: base damage increased by 200.
- ▲Starfire triggered by Lo’sho Amplification: base damage increased by 30%, and its scaling increased by 12%.
- ▲Tyrande’s Guidance now also works with Lunar Lance.
- ▲Ishnu’alah now also reduces the cast time of Huntress Shot and Moon Arrow by 10%.
- ▲Starbound now doubles its effect below 50% health, instead of 20%.
- ▲Vengeful Inspiration now grants 30% attack speed, up from 10%.
- ▲Mooncharged Blades: critical strikes with Starsunder or Starsweep now guarantee you parry the next attack, and your spells cost 30% less mana.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 1: damage increased from 32 to 42.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 2: damage increased from 44 to 57.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 3: damage increased from 58 to 76.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 4: damage increased from 72 to 94.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 5: damage increased from 103 to 134.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 6: damage increased from 110 to 143.
- ▲Starsweep — Rank 7: damage increased from 176 to 229.
- ▲Scattered Stars: scaling increased by 5%.
- ▲Level 20 passive Astral Archer of the Sentinel specialization: mana gains no longer generate threat. This bug was causing Starcallers to generate an asymmetrical amount of threat.
- ▲Level 40 passive Moon Gazing of the Moon Priest specialization: same fix, mana gains no longer generate threat.
- ▲Fury of the Stars increases from 10/20% to 15/30%, and now also works with Starsunder and Warden’s Blade.
- ▲Stellar Amplification now also resets the cooldown of Astral Blade.
- ▲Cooldown of Bonds of Justice reduced to 30 sec, down from 40 sec.
- ▲Sentinel Glaive: base Arcane damage increased from 53-61 to 105-122.
- ▲Sentinel Glaive: mana scaling increased by 10%.
- ▲Sentinel’s Focus increases from 20% to 50% proc chance.
- ▲Level 40 passive Astral Blessing of the Warden specialization: same threat fix as the other two specializations.
- ▲Moonstone Hilt, Moon Guard specialization: block bonus increased from 15/30% to 25/50%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Shrouded Stars, Moon Guard specialization: in addition to its existing effects, now staggers 30% of magic damage taken over 10 seconds (3% of the initial damage per second). ○ Not live yet
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Lunar Splinters has been reworked and now has synergy with the Burning debuff.
Witch Doctor
Net buffTwo clearly distinct profiles for the Witch Doctor over these six days: Brewing gets its healing reworked in depth, while Shadowhunting absorbs a consistent wave of damage across eight changes.
On the Brewing side, Mojo Beam is redesigned to heal continuously through branches that grow throughout the whole channel, against a rising mana cost and a cooldown that goes from 8 to 18 seconds. The level 20 passive trades critical strike for more spell power and mana regeneration. Only Mojo Wave takes a real step back, with less healing and fewer targets hit.
Shadowhunting, meanwhile, only gets increases: Voodoo Fire, Spirit Eclipse on both of its scaling axes, Loa Spirits, Frenzied Spirits, and a general 18% damage increase against monsters. This volume of buffs concentrated on a single specialization easily outweighs the isolated Mojo Wave nerf.
What goes up
- ▲The level 20 Brewing passive is buffed: spell power now scales to 40% of spirit (up from 25%), but no longer grants critical strike rating — replaced with 100% mana regeneration based on spirit.
- ▲Voodoo Fire: Attack Power scaling increased by 10% (Shadowhunting specialization).
- ▲Village Wisdom: damage bonus to Reclamation increased from 15% to 20% (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Loa Spirits: trigger chance per Spirit increased from 4% to 5% (+5% total) (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Spirit Eclipse: base damage increased by 30% (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Spirit Eclipse: SP scaling increased from 12% to 15% (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Soul Feeder now also affects Spirit Eclipse (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Frenzied Spirits: duration granted per Spirit consumed increased from 4 to 5 sec (15 → 20 sec total) (Shadowhunting).
- ▲Shadowhunting specialization damage against monsters increased by 18%.
What goes down
- ▼Mojo Wave now heals for 50% instead of 75%, and hits 2 targets instead of 3.
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Mojo Beam has been reworked: each heal now grows a new branch that immediately heals and keeps healing and growing for the rest of the channel. Its mana cost now increases the longer you channel, and its cooldown goes from 8 to 18 seconds for an 8 second duration instead of 4.
Barbarian
Net buffEleven changes for the Barbarian, and all eleven carry the « not live yet » marker: the entire section describes content waiting on the next realm restart, and nothing is visible in game for now — if you log in right now and see none of these effects, it isn’t a bug on your end. The whole set skews heavily PvE, with three talents fully reworked.
Crush gains radius, and two of its supporting talents change nature: Hail of Hammers trades its critical damage bonus for flat damage against monsters and a shorter cast, while Crusher trades the stun and part of Crush’s damage for an instant cast. Ancestral Strike also changes its logic: it now scales with main-hand weapon speed instead of a fixed factor.
The rest forms a coherent set of damage increases: Decapitate scales with Energy spent, Whirling Assault can now reset by chaining targets with Barbaric Whirl, Rancor adds auto attacks through Brutal Swing, and the whole class gets +6.1% damage in PvE. The only sour note is a targeted 4% PvP reduction on the Brutality specialization — the developers also announce further changes coming to Ancestry and Headhunting.
What goes up
- ▲Crush: radius increased by 25%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Decapitate: now deals 1% additional damage against monsters for every extra point of Energy spent. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Whirling Assault is redesigned: hitting at least 3 targets with Barbaric Whirl now resets its cooldown, once per cycle, and dynamically benefits from cooldown reductions, including Steelslinger. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Rancor now triggers 2 additional auto attacks against your current target for every target hit by Brutal Swing. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Brutal Swing: secondary-target radius increased by 20%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲All Barbarian damage in PvE increased by 6.1%. ○ Not live yet
What goes down
- ▼Brutality specialization damage in PvP reduced by 4%. ○ Not live yet
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Hail of Hammers is reworked: now reduces Crush’s cast time by a flat 1 second (stronger with Haste), and replaces its critical strike damage bonus with +15% damage against monsters. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Crusher is reworked: now makes Crush instant, reduces its damage by 15%, and removes its stun. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Ancestral Strike now scales with main-hand weapon speed, using 2.7 as its baseline: slower weapons deal more damage, up to roughly +37% with a 3.7-speed weapon. ○ Not live yet
- ◆More changes are planned soon for the Ancestry and Headhunting specializations. ○ Not live yet
Witch Hunter
Net buffThe Witch Hunter gets a tight batch that’s almost entirely on hold: of the ten lines for the period, nine won’t take effect until the next realm restart. Combat comfort improves on three spells: Brushin’ Off The Dusk now also triggers Replenishment, Fiery Judgement costs 25% less mana, and Hunt no longer costs any mana at all. Threat generation also improves, with Night’s Watch strengthened across all non-Holy schools.
The rest of the batch fixes and redistributes the interaction between Lethal Pursuit, Shadow Rage, and the Shadow Hounds. Three bug fixes restore effects that weren’t applying correctly: the Shadow Rage proc triggered by Coordinated Killing finally benefits from Lethal Pursuit, its per-stack value climbs as intended, and the Shadow Hounds finally get Lethal Pursuit’s haste bonus. In exchange, the source of that haste bonus shifts to a different talent: it’s no longer Lethal Pursuit that grants it, but Loksey’s Journal, which drops its old attack-power-based damage effect in the process.
The developer’s note attached to this batch explains the root of the issue: Lethal Pursuit had actually been non-functional for a long time due to an application flaw, and fixing it made the talent so strong it eclipsed other capstone choices. The rework spreads its benefit more evenly between the main Shadow Hound and the Lesser Shadow Hounds, for a slightly positive but measured overall damage gain.
What goes up
- ▲Brushin’ Off The Dusk now also procs Replenishment. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fiery Judgement: mana cost reduced by 25%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Hunt no longer costs mana. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Night’s Watch now grants 210% threat, up from 175%, plus an additional 75% threat from all non-Holy schools. ○ Not live yet
- ▲The Shadow Rage proc triggered by Coordinated Killing now correctly benefits from Lethal Pursuit. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Shadow Rage now correctly gains increased value per stack. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed a bug: the Shadow Hounds were not benefiting from Lethal Pursuit’s haste bonus. This is now fixed. ○ Not live yet
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Lethal Pursuit no longer causes Shadow Rage to grant haste to the Shadow Hounds. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Loksey’s Journal now causes Shadow Rage to grant haste to the Shadow Hounds, instead of increasing Shadow Rage damage based on attack power. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Developer’s Note: Lethal Pursuit was previously not working at all due to a faulty application path. With its fix and related fixes (such as it not affecting Coordinated Killing), the value of the talent resulted in a very significant increase in overall damage output of the spec and made other capstone choices irrelevant. Loksey’s Journal provided an uneven value to Lesser Shadow Hounds compared to your main Shadow Hound, Lethal Pursuit effectively tripling its value caused Lesser Shadow Hounds to gain an uneven benefit. For these reasons we have decided to split Lethal Pursuit into two effects and even out the benefits between Shadow Hound and Lesser Shadow Hounds. Overall damage output taking these talents should be slightly increased from the bugfixes and changes.
Sun Cleric
Net buffFive lines that all benefit the Valkyrie specialization: a damage fix that could have looked like a nerf actually translates into +4.5% damage across the board, threat generation climbs sharply on two separate spells, and a shield’s duration literally explodes from 8 seconds to 1 minute. The list’s only two reworks (Justice, Sun-Touched Armor) don’t change raw power but how it’s expressed — Justice to make both weapons useful in melee, the Armor to tie survivability to the shield rather than to Stamina.
A class that gains damage, threat, and survivability without losing a single line: the verdict isn’t up for debate.
What goes up
- ▲Fixed a bug where Champion of the Sun and Divine Retribution dealt more damage than intended, benefiting from damage bonuses, vulnerabilities and PvE/PvP power on top of damage that was already affected by those same modifiers. As a result of this fix, all damage dealt by Valkyrie Sun Clerics increases by 4.5%. The Valkyrie specialization will keep scaling very well, as already shown by the massive gap between pre-raid gear and tier 1.
- ▲Shining Shield: duration increased from 8 seconds to 1 minute. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Sol Invictus now grants 85% threat instead of 70%, plus an additional 90% threat on the Holy and Fire schools instead of 75%. ○ Not live yet
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Justice now deals physical damage with the main-hand weapon and fire damage with the off-hand weapon, so both of the Valkyrie’s weapons stay relevant. ○ Not live yet
- ◆Sun-Touched Armor no longer increases your Stamina by 15%. Instead, it grants you health equal to the armor value provided by your shield. ○ Not live yet
Pyromancer
BalancedThree of the four lines are actually one and the same fix presented in several parts: Heat Wave was mistakenly granting an extra 20% chance to trigger Fired Up!, that bonus is removed, but Fired Up!’s base chance rises from 30% to 40% and Roasted Alive‘s bonus from 20% to 30%. The total (40% + 30% = 70%) lands exactly on the number you got before the fix with all three sources combined (30% + 20% + 20%) — it’s a relocation of the proc source, not a gain or loss of power.
The only line that actually changes the in-game experience is the fix to Kael’s Command, which stopped functioning after the Phoenix had been alive for 60 seconds — a real reliability gain, but not enough on its own to tip the class into the buff column.
What goes up
- ▲Fired Up! now has a base 40% chance to trigger, up from 30%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Roasted Alive now increases the chance to trigger Fired Up! by 30%, up from 20%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Fixed a bug where, after the Phoenix had been alive for 60 seconds, Kael’s Command would stop working. ○ Not live yet
Reworks and quality of life
- ◆Fixed a bug where Heat Wave was unintentionally granting an extra 20% chance to trigger Fired Up!. ○ Not live yet
Reaper
Net buffTwo successive passes on the same threat talent, Dominion: first a standard increase (70%→85% base threat, 70%→85% on Frost and Shadow), then a second correction two days later that raises the base rate to 180%. The tanking Reaper comes out of this batch able to generate far more threat than before, with no downside at all.
What goes up
- ▲Dominion now grants 85% threat instead of 70%, plus an additional 85% threat on the Frost and Shadow schools instead of 70%. ○ Not live yet
- ▲Dominion’s threat generation is raised from 85% to 180%.
Felsworn
Net buffA single line: Agonizing Presence now holds aggro better, a direct gain for the Felsworn’s tanking ability — with no downside announced.
What goes up
- ▲Agonizing Presence now grants 150% threat instead of 125%. ○ Not live yet
Guardian
Net buffA single line: Footman’s Calling now grants more Physical threat — a direct gain for the Guardian’s ability to hold aggro on fights dominated by physical damage.
What goes up
- ▲Footman’s Calling now grants 180% Physical threat instead of 150%. ○ Not live yet
Knight of Xoroth
Net buffA single line, but a clean gain for every tanking Knight of Xoroth: Demonic Power now generates more base threat, and also gains additional threat on the Fire school that it didn’t have before — a direct boost on fights with a heavy Fire component.
What goes up
- ▲Demonic Power now grants 180% threat instead of 150%, plus an additional 50% threat on the Fire school. ○ Not live yet
Bloodmage
Net buffA single line: Eternal Curse now holds base aggro better, and also gains additional threat drawn from spells that cost health — a real boost for a tank whose whole playstyle is sacrificing health to cast spells.
What goes up
- ▲Eternal Curse now grants 95% threat instead of 80%, plus an additional 50% threat drawn from spells that cost health. ○ Not live yet
Templar
Net buffA single line, but a useful one for any Templar tanking a multi-school raid: Divine Stand now holds aggro better against Holy damage, and even more so against every other school — enough to secure threat against bosses that don’t hit purely Holy.
What goes up
- ▲Divine Stand now grants 180% Holy threat instead of 150%, and 135% threat from all other schools instead of 115%. ○ Not live yet
Venomancer
Net buffA single line, but one that matters for every tanking Venomancer: Beetle Form generates more base threat and even more on the Nature school — two stacked increases that make it noticeably easier to grab and hold aggro against Nature damage.
What goes up
- ▲Beetle Form now grants 140% threat instead of 120%, plus an additional 60% threat on the Nature school instead of 50%. ○ Not live yet
Word from the Ascension teamThe team sums up the intent behind the Runemaster rework itself: move away from a single dominant engraving pairing, widen the number of viable builds, and encourage building around the many systems already present in the game instead of ignoring them. Cultist and Barbarian remain under close watch after their recent adjustments, with further tuning already announced.
As always with a patch this dense, the numbers announced here can still shift before the next restart. To dig deeper, head to the Ascension hub and, to play in French, the AscensionFR translation addon.
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