Blizzard has rolled out a new World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth hotfix that includes various changes for the Druid Feral spec and has detailed upcoming Feral Druid changes in future patches.

　　The implemented hotfix reduces the energy cost of ‘Thrash’, ‘Swipe’ and ‘Brutal Slash’, while the duration of ‘Berserk’ has been increased. In addition, the base energy regeneration rate has been increased by 10% and the damage of the ‘Rip’ skill has been increased by 15%.

　　"We're reducing the energy cost of Thrash but also proportionally reducing the damage", Blizzard explained". "The goal is easier ramp-up time in AOE situations, while avoiding causing Thrash to be added to the single target rotation (since it's close to Shred's Energy to damage ratio), which we think wouldn't make for a better overall rotation."

　　"This helps alleviate a secondary stat scaling issue, and both the Energy and damage loss should be overcompensated for by the increase to base Energy regeneration rate plus the other changes listed. We eventually want to remove this hidden bonus entirely, but since players have already made gearing choices based on Haste being their best secondary stat, we don't want to upset that in the short-term, so we'll do this in two parts."

　　We’ve included the full list of changes for the August 30th hotfix down below:

　　Azerite Powers

　　Fixed an issue causing Indomitable Justice (Paladin) to deal less damage than intended under some circumstances.Classes

　　Demon HunterFixed an issue where Demon Hunters would sometimes prematurely fall to their deaths while Gliding away from Dazar’alor.DruidFeralBase energy regeneration increased by 10%.Berserk duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).Brutal Slash energy cost reduced to 25 (was 30).Feral increase to Haste secondary stat value has been reduced to 25% (was 50%).Rip damage increased by 15%.Swipe energy cost reduced to 35 (was 40).Thrash energy cost reduced to 40 (was 45). Thrash damage reduced by 11%.Creatures and NPCs

　　Treasure Hunters around Deadwash will no longer inadvertently flag Horde players for PvP.Dungeons and Raids

　　FreeholdThere is now an NPC that appears at the end of Freehold that will port a player out of the dungeon.Tol DagorOverseer Korgus’s Heartstopper Venom now accrues 25% slower, and fully depletes over 2 seconds when the target is stunned by it.UlduarAlgalon the Observer’s damage dealing abilities now do less damage.Items

　　Merektha's Fang now applies Noxious Venom to targets every 1 second (was every 0.5 seconds).Reinforced Hide and Folded Steel Plating now properly reduce damage taken.Wormhole Generator: Argus will now be interrupted by taking damage.Missions

　　The Amber Rallying Horn now correctly increases the success change of Missions by 10% for each accompanying troop.Professions

　　AlchemyCrafting Endless Tincture of Fractional Power and Surging Alchemist Stone will now provide an extra item when intended.EnchantingCoastal Surge, Siphoning, Torrent of Elements, and Gale-Force Striking weapon enchants should now properly scale down in reagent costs as recipe ranks increase.Engineering The Interdimensional Companion Repository should now stack up to 20.InscriptionContracts now correctly have a 7-day duration.World Quests

　　Profession World Quests should no longer appear on the map for characters who do not know that Profession.Tidesage Ritualists have been sagely taught their tidal ritual, and should no longer evade during "Tidal Teachings".“Beachhead” no longer causes nearby Protection Paladins to lose Last Defender.Aside from the now implemented changes to the Feral spec, Blizzard has also provided additional details on upcoming Feral druid changes.

　　Better consolidate Energy-increasing and heavy pacing-impacting talents into the same row, and reduce the pacing impact that a single talent has -The goal is to reduce the Energy/pacing swing between different talent builds, which allows us to bring up the bottom without letting the highest Energy/pacing talent build with endgame/late expansion gear to get near overflow rangeBetter separate Single Target talents and Multitarget Talents into their own rows -This is slightly more of a challenge on Druid specs than most specs, due to Druids having only 4 throughput talent rows (compared to most specs having 5), but it's a goal we have for all specs.Provide better AOE talent options -Echoing suggestions - a combo-point spender is a possible direction. There may be an additional opportunity to do something with Thrash here. It functions as an enabler, but could be doing even more for the spec.Bloodtalons -Bloodtalons does a great job at adding complexity to the rotation, but we're not sure the method in which it does that is right for the spec long-term. Bloodtalons asks you to frequently cast a Regrowth in exchange for its buff, which in a group/raid, means either you're required to keep an eye on group/raid frames (which is a lot to ask) or you make a macro to mindlessly cast Regrowth on yourself (which isn't great).Remove the spec's bonus to Haste secondary stat (currently on live 50%, soon to be 25%) entirely. Re-adjust Energy/pacing to compensate.Mentioned above, but now that Bleeds scale with Haste, it's both no longer needed to make Haste a relevant stat for Feral, and is also contributing to expansion-wide scaling issues.Remove cat form's 40% bonus to auto-attack damage.This contributes to feedback that abilities don't hit hard enough and have low Energy to damage conversion ratios.“Note that as we've mentioned before, we're watching overall class tuning and plan to make a general tuning pass later next week”, Blizzard concludes.

　　World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is available globally now.