Blizzard nerfs Heroic Ula'tek and rescales Volatile Purge in WoW's August 20 hotfixes

Blizzard's August 20 hotfixes for World of Warcraft Patch 12.1 nerf Heroic difficulty on Ula'tek and clean up a long list of raid bugs in The Venomous Abyss, Wowhead reports. Some of the changes took effect the moment they were applied, while others require scheduled realm restarts.

Ula'tek receives the bulk of the tuning. Blight Vein now deals less damage on Heroic, and a separate fix makes the Blight Vein debuff correctly scale its damage with the number of stacks applied on both Heroic and Mythic. Grasping Fangs now targets three players per side on Heroic regardless of how many people are in the instance group, removing the way larger raids previously spread the mechanic.

Volatile Purge has been rescaled so its area of effect depends on raid size in Normal and Heroic. The effect radius is largest in a 10-player raid and shrinks gradually as the group grows, reaching its smallest size at 30 players. Spectral Coils, meanwhile, no longer scales unintentionally on non-Mythic difficulties, now requires 40 percent of the raid to reduce its damage to the minimum value, and has been adjusted on Heroic so its timing is more consistent. Hunters using Stampede pets from the Pack Leader hero talents can now damage the Heart of Ula'tek during the encounter.

Vashnik, the Malignant gets four fixes. Stygian Burst no longer inflicts damage over a larger area than intended, Shrouded Venom now has significant health and shields, players are no longer hit repeatedly by the same wave in a short period, and a rare bug that dropped players through the playspace when using Harpoon on a Venom inside the Malignant Cavity has been resolved. Elsewhere in The Venomous Abyss, players can no longer fall through the world in The Serpent Warren, and The Coiled Altar no longer occasionally fails to transition into its third phase at the end of the intermission.

Dungeon fixes are lighter. In Ruby Life Pools, certain abilities could cancel the breath spells of Thunderhead and Flamegullet, and in Temple of Sethraliss the Avatar's progress bar could reach 100 percent while the boss was still at 99 percent health.

The class list runs across six specs. Havoc Demon Hunters taking Aldrachi Reaver now get the extra Vengeful Retreat cast from Evasive Action; Marksmanship Hunters can no longer double-dip Precise Shots by casting Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot as Rapid Fire finishes while talented into Unload, and Explosive Shot's area damage is now properly reduced by damage-reduction effects; Holy Priests no longer waste a Benediction proc by queuing a Holy Word; Elemental Shaman's Master of the Elements now increases Earthquake damage; and Affliction Warlock picks up four Wither-related fixes, including the Venomous Abyss four-piece set bonus failing to grant a stack of Wither.

Item changes round out the notes: the Companion Command Crystal is now bind-on-pickup, the Omnium Folio's Rune of Unleashed Fire no longer pulls enemies the player was not already fighting, and Prey's Toxic Snare deals less damage with a weaker slow.