Oha, that was fast. Back in August, we first reported that Mike Ybarra, Blizzard's new co-lead, was not a fan of the "AoE cap"

. Lo and behold, in the patch notes from the PTR for patch 9.1.5 last night, the developers announced the removal of the "AoE Cap."

The explanation reads, "The goal of the "AoE Cap" was to prevent groups from being able to bulldoze extremely large groups and then destroy them with all cooldowns in seconds. Instead, the effectiveness of area attacks should increase when fighting three to five enemies. As exceptions, spells like Consecration were waved through, promising low damage over an extended period of time. However, player feedback made it clear to the developers that it just feels bad when area-of-effect attacks don't catch enemies that are actually in range of the attack. Additionally, the limitation caused problems in Legacy content that players like to solo.

The AoE cap is therefore removed from many abilities. However, the area attacks will only reach their full damage potential on the first five targets. Starting with the sixth target, the attack will then cause reduced damage.

According to Blizzard, the following abilities are affected by this change:

• Death Knight
  • Sacrifice Pact
  • Monstrous Limb
  • Reanimated Shuffler
  • But
    • Consumption (Talent)
    • Bone Storm (Talent)
  • Frost
    • Frost Sickle (Talent)
  • Unholy
    • Bursting Boils (Talent)
• Demon Hunter
  • Devastation
    • Blade Dance
    • Devil's Blast (Talent)
  • Vengeance
    • Soul Splitter
    • Mood Bomb (Talent)
• Druid
  • Paw Slash
  • Savagery
    • Brutal Slashing (Talent)
• Hunter
  • Soulforge Embers
  • Beastmastery
    • Predatory Slash
    • Multiple Shot
    • Barrage (Talent)
  • Marksmanship
    • Multiple Shot
    • Barrage (Talent)
    • Explosive Shot (Talent)
  • Survival
    • Dismember
    • Slaughter (Talent)
• Mage
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Echo (Talent)
  • Frost
    • Frozen Sphere
    • Glacial Fragment
• Monk
  • Brewmaster
    • Rushing Jade Wind (Talent)
  • Wind Runner
    • Furor Fists
    • Whirling Jade Wind (Talent)
• Paladin
  • Retribution
    • Divine Storm
• Rogue
  • Assassinate
    • Dagger Fan
    • Blood Red Storm (Talent)
  • Deception
    • Black Powder
    • Shuriken Storm
    • Secret Technique (Talent)
• Shaman
  • Elemental
    • Storm Elemental (Talent)
• Warlock
  • Demonology
    • Felguard's Felstorm
• Warrior
  • Whirlwind
  • Weapons
    • Blade Storm
    • Rift (Talent)
    • Devastator (Talent)
    • Fright Strikes (Talent)
  • Furor
    • Blade Storm
  • Protection
    • Devastator (Talent)

Support buffed - it will only take a minute. Thank you!

All readers get free daily news, articles, guides, videos, and podcasts on World of Warcraft, Pokémon Go, and other favorite games from us. Up until now, we've funded this site through advertising and kept it as free of paid articles as possible, but since COVID-19, that's become increasingly difficult. Many companies are cutting or eliminating their advertising budgets for 2020. Budgets that we unfortunately have to rely on if we want to continue offering buffed for free in the future in the form we are used to.

For this reason, we are now turning to you. You can support us as buffed supporters so that we can continue to offer our content for free in the usual form without introducing a paywall or publishing misleading news. Every contribution, big or small, is valuable. Support buffed - it only takes a minute.

Support now

We thank you in advance

. Advertisement: Order World of Warcraft now on AmazonAlso read these interesting stories 0

WoW Patch 9.2: Three new cutscenes from the test server [Spoiler!]

What can we expect in Zereth Mortis, the new area of patch 9.2? The first three cutscenes from the WoW test server tell us! [Spoiler! 0

WoW: When dragon Teremus hunts hardcore players in Stormwind

When the dragon Teremus suddenly flies through Stormwind in WoW Classic: Season of Mastery and starts hunting down hardcore players ... 4

WoW: Shadowlands turns 1 year old - the runtimes of the WoW expansions

WoW players have been in the Shadowlands for a year now. We take a look at whether Shadowlands could become the longest expansion. 01:31WoW
Patch 9.1: The launch trailer for Chains of Domination is here (German) From Karsten Scholz
Editor
Karsten has been writing about his favourite hobby since 2009 - it all started back then as a rogue class spokesman at buffed. Is something missing in the article? to the home page The links marked with * are affiliate links. Affiliate links are not ads, as we are independent in our research and selection of featured products. For product sales we receive a small commission, with which we partially finance the free content of the website. 5