Drowned City gets easier and busy zones emptier

Creatures in The Drowned City did about 30% more damage than intended in World of Warcraft: Forever. A hotfix of 9 November fixes that and weakens the Deathless Marrow fight. The same batch puts fewer players in crowded zones, most of all on the PvP ruleset.

Blizzard added the fixes to its running hotfix list on the forums. No patch or restart is needed.

The Drowned City

Apart from the general 30%, the Deathless Marrow encounter gets four cuts.

Change
Creature health	25% lower
Fireball of the Deathless Sorcerer	25% less damage
Charge of the Deathless Watcher	50% less damage
Shield Slam of the Deathless Guardian	cast about half as often

Fewer players per zone

Zones with heavy congestion now hold fewer players. Blizzard explains why the PvP ruleset gets the biggest cut:

We’ve made this an even bigger change on the PvP ruleset, following feedback from players that they felt overcrowded in several places. We will continue to monitor how zones feel and make further adjustments as necessary.

The same evening, Blizzard also made it harder to create characters on the bigger PvP faction.

Other dungeons

• Alcaz Prison: Zarla Ober drops loot again.
• Blackrock Depths: Heart of the Mountain can be looted more than once, and the throne room doors open again after a wipe on Emperor Dagran Thaurissan.
• The Shaper’s Terrace: Vitrix, Snowtalon and Cinder drop loot and higher skinning materials, and Cinder spawns after the Archival Panel.
• Stratholme: you can no longer mount inside.
• Blackfathom Deeps: players no longer get stuck unable to release after dying.
• Waylaid Crates and Craftsman’s Writs now drop inside dungeons too.

Classes and items

• Warlock: finishing the quest for Summon Felsteed now grants the riding skill. Who finished it earlier gets apprentice riding by summoning the Felsteed once. Incinerate is now Destruction only.
• Mage: Arcane Concentration splits its chance over the cast and every bolt, instead of 10% on each.
• Shaman: Lightning Overload now does the right damage for Lightning Bolt.
• Priest: Shadowform no longer breaks on Fear Ward, and Power Infusion stays on allies.
• Druid: several Feral fixes for Feral Charge, Natural Instinct and Pounce.
• The Pouch of Violet Dust now gives the extra hour of Camp Benefits.
• Nifty Stopwatch no longer shares a cooldown with Sprint, Dash and Blink.

The list also holds about fifteen quest fixes, an open roof on the Alliance base in Warsong Gulch, and Tauren Cultivation, which only goes on cooldown after the cast.