WoW Hotfixes September 3: Holy Priest and Resto Shaman Fixes

What changed on September 3

Blizzard spent September 3 on corrections rather than tuning. Two healing specialisations had broken effects repaired, Ula'tek lost a way of dodging one of its abilities, and a War Mode achievement started counting quests it had been ignoring. No damage or healing value was retuned anywhere in the game, and no Player versus Player section was published.

Achievements

• Fixed an issue where the achievement Spark in the Night was not granting credit for the "Sparks of War" quest if completed in the Coiled Isle, Val, or Naigtal.

Classes

Priest

Holy

• Fixed an issue with the Venomous Abyss 2-set bonus that caused Renew to not reliably grant Renewed Vigor.

Shaman

Restoration

• Totemic: Corrected an issue where Oversurge did not properly increase the healing done by Surging Totem or Overflowing Shores.

Dungeons and Raids

Two instances were touched: Ruby Life Pools in Mythic+, and the raid The Venomous Abyss.

Ruby Life Pools

• Fixed an issue where the Radiant Drake entrance-return NPC did not appear in Mythic+ after defeating the final boss.

The Venomous Abyss

Ula'tek

• Caustic Waves have been adjusted so they cannot be avoided by swimming under them.
• Corrected an error in the Blight Vein spell description that was pointing to the wrong damage value.

Items

• The Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique trinket effect, Perfected Guillotine, will no longer target enemies who are not engaged in combat for its second target.

Quests

• The Darkwell should now remain for characters who have not finished the "War of Light and Shadow" Campaign but have completed the Arator quests for "Curse of Ula'tek" Campaign.

What this means in rated PvP

Blizzard published no Player versus Player heading on September 3, and that is not the same thing as a day with nothing for rated play. The Player versus Player heading is where PvP-exclusive tuning goes; an entry that carries no PvP marker and names no boss, dungeon or encounter applies wherever the specialisation is played, rated arena and Solo Shuffle included. Three of the eight entries are unmarked in exactly that way.

Two of them are healer repairs, and that is where the day's rated relevance sits. The Restoration Shaman fix is the more direct of the pair. Oversurge is a Totemic effect and Surging Totem is the totem the build is named for, so a bonus that was not applying was healing that was simply not happening, in a Solo Shuffle round exactly as much as in a raid. Nothing about the fix is scoped to PvE.

The Holy Priest repair runs through raid gear instead. Renew failing to reliably grant Renewed Vigor cost the specialisation part of its Venomous Abyss 2-set, and the fix gives it back. How strongly raid set bonuses carry into rated play is not a figure Blizzard has published, so this is best read as a restored piece of the specialisation's raid kit that travels into arena with it, rather than as a rated healing buff of a known size.

The trinket entry is the one not to overread. A second Perfected Guillotine target that is not yet in combat is a pull hazard in open world and dungeon content; a rated arena or Solo Shuffle round contains only its participants, so the correction lands almost entirely outside rated play.

Spark in the Night is PvP of a different kind. Sparks of War is War Mode content, so credit now being granted in the Coiled Isle, Val and Naigtal is a world PvP fix rather than a rated one. It changes what counts toward an achievement, not how a match plays.

Both repaired specialisations are healers, and healer representation in Solo Shuffle moves week to week. The current picture for your region:

What did not change

The September 1 pace-of-combat pass has not been revisited. No PvP damage, healing or absorb modifier moved on September 2 or September 3, and the Gladiator's Distinction healer primary stat share is still the 5% it was cut to on September 1. Neither day touched an Omnium Folio rune, so rune choices in rated play are unaffected.

Blight Vein also did not get weaker. Its damage is unchanged; the spell description had been pointing at the wrong value, and it is the text that was corrected.

Next steps

The September 2 hotfixes carry the season's only PvP corrections so far, including the Preservation Evoker Rewind failure under Cyclone.

For the two specialisations repaired here, the spec pages track live talent and gear choices: Holy Priest and Restoration Shaman.

Solo Shuffle representation by specialisation is on the meta pages for EU and US.