WoW Hotfixes, September 21: Stone Venom Cut 40% and Two Unravel Fixes

What changed

Blizzard's September 21 hotfix batch is short and lopsided. Six of its nine entries sit inside The Venomous Abyss, and the one that matters most to a raid team is a straight number: Ula'tek's Stone Venom now deals 40% less damage on every difficulty, taking effect with the weekly restarts. That is the second cut to the same ability in a week.

The rest is repair work. Two Evoker entries fix Unravel failing to trigger or failing to reach every target of Fire Breath, one entry fixes a dungeon assist that could end two Midnight dungeons short of their enemy forces count, and three rare failures on The Coiled Altar are closed. No damage, healing or cooldown value moved for any class or specialisation.

The previous dated section was September 17. Nothing was added on the 18th, 19th or 20th, so this is the first batch in four days on Blizzard's rolling Midnight hotfixes page.

Classes

Both class entries concern one talent. Unravel makes direct damage from Fire Breath consume enemy absorb shields for extra damage, and Blizzard found two ways it could silently do nothing. Blizzard lists both under the class rather than under a specialisation.

Evoker

• Fixed an issue preventing Unravel from activating when Fire Breath was cast with Tip the Scales.
• Fixed an issue where Unravel may not hit all targets struck by Fire Breath.

The first fix is the one a player would have noticed. Tip the Scales exists to fire an empowered spell instantly at full rank, so an Evoker pairing it with Fire Breath was spending a cooldown on exactly the cast that lost its Unravel damage.

Dungeons and Raids

• Fixed an issue where following Lindormi's Guidance in Den of Nalorakk and Altar of Fangs would lead to ending the dungeon short of the enemy forces requirement.

Lindormi's Guidance marks the non-boss enemies a group needs, and clearing all of them is meant to complete the enemy forces count. In these two dungeons it did not, so a group following it faithfully could finish the dungeon with the count still short.

The Coiled Altar

Three rare-case fixes. None changes a number; each restores a mechanic that occasionally failed to happen at all.

• Fixed a rare issue where Toxic Deluge would fail to create Coalesced Venoms and Virulent Mutations.
• Fixed a rare issue where Fangs of the Crucible and Defilement of the Crucible would not create area denial on both halves of the platform.
• Resolved an issue where pets could engage Zul'jan during the roleplay.

Ula'tek

Two of the three entries carry Blizzard's "with weekly restarts" tag, which means they arrive with each region's weekly restart rather than live on realms immediately.

• With weekly restarts: Ula'tek's Stone Venom damage reduced by 40% on all difficulties.
• With weekly restarts: Boiling Venom on Mythic difficulty is now an Important Aura.
• Fixed an issue where Stone Venom could fail to inflict damage to players far from Ula'tek.

Stone Venom has now been reduced twice in a week. The September 15 batch lowered its damage on all difficulties without giving a figure; this one attaches a figure, 40%. The third entry pulls the other way: players standing far from Ula'tek could previously escape Stone Venom damage entirely, and after this fix they take it. Boiling Venom is the Blightscale effect that doubles its haste and damage once its timer runs out; on Mythic it now carries the game's Important Aura flag, which changes how prominently it is shown, not how strong it is.

For the guilds that finished this encounter first on Mythic, see our Mythic Ula'tek world first coverage. Blizzard appends each batch to the same rolling article, so the next one will arrive as a new dated section there.