Blizzard released an update for World of Warcraft Classic fixing a 14-year-old bug that first appeared with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. As World of Warcraft Classic let players rediscover the early days of Blizzard’s popular MMORPG, it also revealed some bugs long forgotten by the World of Warcraft community.Wrath of the Lich King is the second expansion for World of Warcraft Classic, released in September 2022 with a new continent for players to explore and new raids including Ulduar and the Icecrown Citadel. This major expansion introduced the Death Knight class to the game, which was quickly used by malicious accounts to access late-game resources without having to level up their character. In response to these exploits, Blizzard banned nearly 120,000 World of Warcraft Classic accounts and restored the pre-requisite of having at least one character reach level 55 before unlocking the new class.The latest patch notes for World of Warcraft Classic addressed a bug impacting the legendary weapon Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings that caused the one-hand mace to absorb a ridiculous amount of damage. Because of an extra zero that wasn’t previously spotted in the game’s code, the maximum number of health this weapon could absorb was 200,000 instead of the 20,000 health initially intended by Blizzard. While players never noticed this bug in the original version of Wrath of the Lich King, its recent release on World of Warcraft Classic allowed QA testers to take a second look at this legendary weapon and its overpowered effect.
Despite its recent nerf, Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings remains a powerful weapon for World of Warcraft Classic players. This legendary mace can only be wielded by healer classes and require them to gather small fragments that have a low chance to drop for every boss in Ulduar, one of the raids introduced with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Whenever a player with this weapon heals a teammate, Val'anyr has a chance to cast an additional shield on the target to protect them from further damage. Even without the 200,000 health cap, this ability remains powerful as it prevents players from receiving additional damage and eventually dying.
In other World of Warcraft news, players recently discovered that the 10.1 PTR had a popup for hardcore realms in its interface core. Blizzard hasn’t shared any information on this yet, leaving players wondering whether a new difficulty tier could appear for some servers. The World of Warcraft hardcore servers could potentially feature permadeath or other mechanics to bring a more challenging playstyle to Blizzard’s MMORPG.
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