August 15 Balance Patch

Three Days of Live Tuning

Ascension posted a dense changelog across August 13, 14, and 15 while the Heroic shrine ladder was still running. This page is a player-facing digest — not a copy of every rank-number line. Official numbers always win if a later hotfix lands.

If you only have time for one rebuild this week, do Runemaster Weapon Engraving. Everything else is a tuning pass you can absorb on the next raid night.

August 15 — Systems & Runemaster

Ragnaros now starts at 30% health (was 40%). Total remaining HP is unchanged — the execute window is simply longer. Wildvine has a 1% chance from every mob inside Zul'Gurub, and open-world Wildvine drops were tripled. Mythic coins per week rose 50%; Mythic caches doubled. Both currency changes are retroactive.

Runemaster received a full Weapon Engraving identity pass: Icebound Momentum, cross-element synergies, Arcane/Water reworks, PvE damage ups on core spells, an 8% PvP damage cut, and a new level-50 passive — Expansive Engraver. Heat Wave healing split was fixed and can crit. Cultist Embodiment of Y'shaarj now converts absorb into Attack Power, not Spell Power.

• Runemaster Engraving Rework — pairing chart and raid notes
• Wildvine & Zul'Gurub — farm routes after the drop buff
• Mythic Weekly Caches — coin and cache math

August 13–14 — Barbarian, Tanks, PvP

August 13: All Barbarians +6.1% PvE damage; Brutality −4% in PvP. Brutal Swing radius +20%; Rancor extra autos; Whirling Assault resets Barbaric Whirl after three targets; Crush radius +25%. Witch Hunter Lethal Pursuit / Loksey's Journey were split so Shadow Hounds and Lesser Hounds share value. Ragnaros “Too Soon” emerge moved to 40% that day (the August 15 note then set the start HP to 30%). Majordomo Inferno Aegis now accumulates and ticks over 4 seconds. PvP trinkets remove movement impairs, disarms, silences, and all loss-of-control. Witch Doctor Spirit Link Idol starts immediately. Knight of Xoroth Darkrider spell penetration scales to 75 at 60. Starcaller Unleashed Wisp gained base damage and spell-power scaling.

August 14: Reaper Dominion threat generation jumped from 85% to 180%. Tank-stance tooltips now show the extra school threat, not the total.

What to Do Tonight

Export your current Runemaster tree before you touch nodes — old Ice / Air pairs still work, but the new cross-element passives change which second engraving you want on Ragnaros and Hakkar. Tanks on Reaper should re-test threat on Lucifron packs. Healers who leaned on Heat Wave need to re-learn the lowest-HP priority (pets ignored, 60% less healing in PvP).

Watch the official Runemaster highlight embedded above, then the community Which Classes Should You Play if you are rerolling after the Cultist absorb change. Written week plan: Late-August Checklist.