Shortly before the release of Shadowlands, World of Warcraft receives another patch. This changes various items from Battle for Azeroth – including the Heart of Azeroth, the most powerful item from the expansion.
What kind of item is this? The Heart of Azeroth was the core feature of BfA. It is a necklace, and with its combination of effects and stats, it is the strongest item of any character. It also provided:
- increasing levels, resulting in better stats
- various abilities granted to it through essences
- the Azerite pieces that were linked to the Heart in the BfA story
It accompanied you throughout the entire expansion. Acquiring the Heart is one of the first quests of BfA, and you typically do not unequip it until somewhere around mid-Shadowlands. Also, when WoW was sometimes easier without wearing the Heart.
What happens to it now? Tomorrow, on November 18, the Heart will receive a nerf of 20% on all secondary stats. This means specifically for a Heart of Azeroth at level 56/item level 111:
- Stamina: 29 – unchanged
- Critical Strike Chance: 48 → about 38
- Haste: 48 → about 38
- Mastery: 48 → about 38
The stats are roughly on par with those of neck pieces you can obtain from the rare bosses of Icecrown, potentially a bit stronger. However, you will likely be able to replace the Heart earlier in Shadowlands.
Trinket nerfs and class changes in the last patch
What else is changing: In addition to the changes to the Heart of Azeroth, several trinkets will be nerfed. Three of the most important among them are Azshara’s Born of Power, the Highborne Compendium of Storms, and Ashenwind’s Blade Corall.
The Born and the Coral still originate from the penultimate raid in BfA but were considered so powerful for spellcasters or melee fighters that even trinkets in Ny’alotha could not replace them.
The effectiveness of these trinkets will therefore be reduced. The Born of Power will be significantly weakened by 25%. The Coral and the Compendium will even receive a nerf of 40% on their effect.
Additionally, all classes will receive some adjustments. A summary of the changes can be found compiled on wowhead. The complete adjustments prior to Shadowlands can be found on the official World of Warcraft website.
When are the changes coming? The effects will take effect after the server restart on Wednesday around 11:00 AM. This is just under a week before the release of Shadowlands on November 24.
By the way, you should urgently ensure that all your addons are up to date this week. Update them if necessary and check again on November 23 if there are new updates. Because right at the release of Shadowlands, managing addons will initially be problematic.
