WoW: The War Within fixes bring major Zekvir’s Lair delve nerfs

Blizzard has continued to balance classes and the game as a whole now that WoW: The War Within is live, with a full suite of changes hitting servers on September 27.

The headline changes are centered on Zekvir’s Lair, the challenging culmination of the new Delves activity. Coming in two extremely tough difficulties, it tasks players with taking on and defeating the enormous Hand of the Harbinger.

Evidently, the development team feels as though the current iteration of the activity is proving too difficult, rolling out a series of nerfs to several of the mechanics within, as well as the big boss itself.

Additionally, the Nerub’ar Palace raid is now a little different, with several changes to the Queen Ansurek encounter at the end.

WoW: The War Within fixes for September 27

The complete notes for the September 27 changes in The War Within are as follows:

September 27, 2024

Achievements

• Guilds can no longer earn faction-specific achievements that do not match the guild’s faction.
  • Developer’s note: This should fix the occasional achievement spam for Diplomacy, United Nations, Dungeon Diplomat, Pandaren Embassy, and Ambassadors.

Classes

• Evoker
  • Augmentation, Devastation
    • Fixed an issue where canceling Deep Breath with Maneuverability could cause the Evoker to briefly fly in place.
• Warlock
  • Diabolists’ Overlord, Mother of Chaos, and Pit Lord should now attack the target of the spell that summoned them.
  • Fixed an issue where Shared Fate would be applied to the warlock’s current target, rather than the target of the spell that activated its effect.

Delves

• Reduced enemies’ health and damage for solo healers.
• Brann no longer uses Thirty Yards of Rope to dispel pets.
• Zekvir’s Lair
  • Zekvir’s damage and health has been reduced for both difficulties.
  • Horrendous Roar is now a 2.5 second cast time for both difficulties (was 2.4 seconds and 2.25 seconds).
  • Web Terror’s hatch time increased.
  • Web Terror’s Web Blast cast time increased.
  • Web Terrors now spawn randomly in the room rather than based off of Zek’vir’s current position.
  • Spittle and Regenerating Carapace’s recast times now change while solo to better match each specialization’s interrupt cooldowns.
  • Fixed an issue where Web Terrors would not despawn when the encounter ended.
  • The damage of Angler’s Web has been reduced.
  • Claw Smash’s visuals have been updated.
  • Fixed an issue where Aspect of the Turtle did not work against Claw Smash.
  • Fixed an issue where Claw Smash and Angler’s Web visuals would not display during the precast.

Dungeons and Raids

• Xal’atath’s Bargain: Oblivion
  • Addressed an issue where Crystal of Oblivion can sometime fail to path to its target.
• Siege of Boralus
  • Fixed an issue that caused Dreadcaptain Lockwood to use Gut Shot unexpectedly when disembarking from the ship.
• Nerub-ar Palace
  • Queen Ansurek
    • Acolyte’s Essence periodic damage reduced by 12.5% on Mythic difficulty.
    • Royal Condemnation damage reduced by 8% on Mythic difficulty.
    • Demonic Gateway, Transcendence spirit, Spirit Link Totem, and Wind Rush Totem are no longer moved unexpectedly during certain moments of the encounter.
    • Fixed issue in Mythic difficulty where warning visualization effects for Shadowgates would sometimes fail to appear after the first cast.

Season of Discovery

• The Druid weapon Gla’sir will now pick damage targets of its damage effect based on the target’s location instead of the Druid’s own location. The range for the healing effect has been increased to 40 yards.
• Fixed an interaction issue with Tidal Waves Shaman rune and Chain Heal. Chain Heal will no longer sometimes not generate a charge of Tidal Waves.
• The quest “The Price of Hope” is no longer required to be completed to start the quest “Our Wayward Friend” at Katherine the Pure to start the Horn of Lordaeron.
• Blackwing Lair
  • Victor Nefriendius now despawns during the Razorgore encounter.
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the first door in Blackwing Lair from opening after wiping on Broodlord Lashlayer.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Nefarian’s initial Shadow Flame spell to affect player pets.

To see how each spec is performing, make sure to check out our DPS tier list, while we also have the same for Tanks and Healers.