Shields hold half, a stronger Lightbringer healer, Levelling arena brackets and recipes by profession

• Shields against deck bosses: hits on everyone, charges and chains are now held by shields by half — the shield takes half the hit, the rest goes to Health. Before, they went past shields entirely. Cold and test strikes still go past shields, and ordinary hits are held by the shield in full, as before. Fights against players are unchanged. • This brings back healer shields, overheal turning into shields, and the shield bonuses of sets and relics. In our heroic raid test, the healer’s and damage dealers’ shields take about 20% of the damage instead of 10%, and they lose 13–17% less Health per turn; in mythic with a live group, damage dealers’ shields take 11–12% of the damage instead of 4–5%. • Lightbringer healer: Huddle Close (4 crystals) heals the whole party at once and for 2 more turns — with 850 Power and a party of 5 that is 259 to each at once and 128 more per turn (it used to be only 259 at once): 644 healing per crystal instead of 324. Running on Empty costs 8% of your own Health instead of 15%. • Healer cards: swapping out attack cards no longer removes cards that heal through a set bonus or talent (for example, Verdict of Light with Mercy of the Verdict) or control cards — stuns. The window lists your attack cards: what leaves by default is ticked, and you change it as you like. If you already swapped cards, you will see the window once more. • Radiant Barrier (Priest, Discipline, 8 pieces): the other allies get half of the shield as healing, any excess becomes a shield. Hide of the Ancient Beast (Druid, Beast Form, 8): above half Health every attack heals for 15% of its damage, any excess becomes a shield — so the bonus also restores what cold and test strikes took. Unbreachable Wall (Barbarian, Protection, 8): while Unbreachable is up, the boss’s hits on the healer, the wounded and other chosen targets go to the Barbarian — just as the bonus says. • Hints: shield cards in a fight with a deck boss, and the “How to beat it” window, now say how shields meet its hits: cold and test strikes go past shields; hits on everyone and charges — half. • The “Levelling” arena is split into 10-level brackets: 1–9, 10–19, 20–29, 30–39, 40–49 and 50–59. Each bracket has its own table — bracket buttons and “How do brackets work?” sit above it. Level 60 is unchanged. • Your “Levelling” arena opponent comes from your own bracket: first heroes within 3 levels of you, then the whole bracket, then residents of your level. • Move up to the next bracket and you start it at 500 rating. Your place in the previous bracket stays in its table until the season ends as a “bracket result”. • Levelling season rewards are titles for each bracket: 1st place — “Arena Champion”, 2nd–3rd — “Arena Medalist”, 4th–10th — “Arena Top Ten”. Each bracket champion also gets the “Laurel of Rising” portrait frame, which will appear in your Collection once its artwork is ready. Places in the Levelling arena no longer give gear or arena points. • The Heart of Ragnamor now drops only for heroes whose class can wield a two-handed axe: Barbarian, Lightbringer, Ranger, Revenant and Stormbringer. • Personal recipes and schematics — legendary recipes from bosses, First Forge schematics, legendary cutting schematics and the Seal recipe — now drop only for heroes with their profession. • A personal recipe or schematic for a profession you don’t have can be traded for 2 Shards of the First Forge — use the “Trade” button in the item window. • Guild: the Guild Master and officers can leave a member a note of up to 60 characters — “On holiday”, “Away for work”, “Alt” or your own text. Every member sees it in the Roster. • Real numbers: Tier set bonuses, talent cards, the Medallion of Zarhold and arena brands, racial abilities, Path of the Hall rewards and consumable tooltips now show numbers for your gear and talents. Where the arena caps Power, “in the arena — N” is shown next to them. Bonuses that grant a new card have a “Show card” button. • A card link in chat shows the sender’s numbers and the arena numbers, and the caption says whose numbers they are. • Friends, the guild roster and the name menu now show what an online hero is doing: “⚔ In combat · Temple of An-Kevash”, “⚔ In the arena”, “On a run”, “In the Chambers”, “At the auction”, “Crafting”, “In a party 3/5”, “Away” and more. Only friends, your guild and your group can see where the run is. • An “Available” button in friends and the guild roster shows only the players you can invite right now: online and not in combat, not on a run, not in the arena and not away. • Settings → “Privacy” → “Show what I’m doing”: everyone (the default), friends and guild, or nobody. Everyone can see “● Online”, as in the “In Zarhold” list. • Another hero’s sheet on a phone in landscape: the “what they’re doing” line no longer drops below the portrait. It always fits on one line, and a long location ends with “…”. • Schematic battle: “Settings → Graphics → Schematic battle”. Battles and card replacement without images: a dark background, the first letter of the name in a colored ring instead of a portrait, cards without art with the text across the whole card, larger. Battle images are not downloaded, so a battle starts right away even on a slow connection. It is turned on only by hand; the rest of the game does not change. • While the schematic view is on, the battle header shows a “Schematic ✕” tag. Click it to restore the usual look right in the battle. Other players still see your frames and auras. • 217 new icons: consumables, heirloom items, professions, racial abilities and achievement capstone emblems. • A “live” damage meter: damage, healing and shield numbers are added to the meter the moment they land — together with the number on the board. • Emotes on air: the referee and spectators of a fight see both fighters’ emotes. • In the English version of the game, 109 stickers now have English captions. • Rewards for world map battles and for turning in quests are now granted by the server: if the connection drops, the game sends the result later and the reward is not lost. • “Under the Banner”: the +60 Path of the Hall points per guild run are now credited (up to 10 a week) — before, they never arrived.