Off-Spec World Quest Rewards

I’m sure I’m not the only Restoration or Balance Druid who was — at least temporarily — frustrated by the plethora of Agility trinkets being offered as rewards for World Quests. It seemed for a week or so that I would never see an Intellect trinket, making me envious of the “pure” classes (like Mr. Phae’s Arcane Mage) who only have one primary stat to pursue. I originally viewed this as an oversight on Blizzard’s part and assumed that they would correct it in one of the tuning patches. However, the development team actually makes some good points:

World Quest Rewards
  • World Quests don’t adjust rewards based on your loot specialization.
  • If the map changed every time you changed spec that would be an annoying experience.
  • Having to cycle between your different specs to see different rewards is not great.
  • It also allows you to get items for off-specs without having to change your loot spec.
Source: Live Developer Q&A: Patch 7.1 (as summarized by MMO Champion)

In other words, don’t expect this to be changed, although if you’re like me, you now have the Intellect- or Agility-based World Quest trinket drops you were looking for anyway.

Hotfixes: September 23

Sorry for the confusion caused by my earlier post; the changes to Haste and Critical Strike stats are apparently PvP-specific (something that will take some getting used to).

Posted by Blizzard Entertainment on Sept 23, 2016

PvE

PvP

Developers’ Notes: While many of the above changes are beneficial for PvP, some specs need additional tuning for PvP situations. Some of the PvP- specific changes we’re making are intended to counteract the above, while others are simply intended to help overall PvP balance.

  • Guardian
    • Frenzied Regeneration now factors in 50% of recent damage taken from players when determining it’s healing amount (previously, it ignored damage taken from players).
  • Restoration
    • Lifebloom’s bloom effect increased by 50% in PvP.
    • Critical Strike stat reduced by 50%.
    • Haste stat increased by 50%.