With the recent announcement of patch 9.1.5, Blizzard has announced a list of quality of life changes to the game based on player feedback from the past two years.
Of course, many players had issues with Shadowlands systems such as not being able to switch covenants freely, but the AoE cap was one of the major changes which affected the game as a whole even outside of Shadowlands content, and if it stayed would potentially harm the following expansions as well.
All Skills Coming Off The AoE Cap In World Of Warcraft Patch 9.1.5
Read more: Blizzard To Reverse The AoE Cap Introduced With Shadowlands In Patch 9.1.5.
Not all abilities come off the AoE cap as they weren't off it prior to the Shadowlands.
Fury Warriors Whirlwind cleave is still capped to 5 targets, so is a Marksmanship Hunter's Trick Shots. Below is a full list of abilities coming off the cap in 9.1.5.
Death Knight
- Sacrificial Pact
- Abomination Limb (Necrolord Ability)
- Reanimated Shambler (Runecarving Power)
Blood
- Consumption (Talent)
- Bonestorm (Talent)
Frost
- Frostscythe (Talent)
Unholy
- Bursting Sores (Talent)
Demon Hunter
Havoc
- Blade Dance
- Fel Barrage (Talent)
Vengeance
- Soul Cleave
- Spirit Bomb (Talent) now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets (previously was soft-capped at 20 targets).
Druid
- Swipe
Feral
- Brutal Slash (Talent)
Hunter
- Soulforge Embers (Runecarving Power)
Beast Mastery
- Beast Cleave
- Multi-Shot
- Barrage (Talent)
Marksmanship
- Multi-Shot
- Barrage (Talent)
- Explosive Shot (Talent)
Survival
- Carve
- Butchery (Talent)
Mage
Arcane
- Arcane Echo (Talent)
Frost
- Frozen Orb
- Glacial Fragments (Runecarving Power)
Monk
Brewmaster
- Rushing Jade Wind (Talent)
Windwalker
- Fists of Fury
- Rushing Jade Wind (Talent)
Paladin
Retribution
- Divine Storm
Rogue
Assassination
- Fan of Knives
- Crimson Tempest (Talent)
Subtlety
- Black Powder
- Shuriken Storm
- Secret Technique (Talent)
Shaman
Elemental
- Storm Elemental’s (Talent) Eye of the Storm
Warlock
Demonology
- Felguard’s Felstorm
Warrior
- Whirlwind
Arms
- Bladestorm
- Cleave (Talent)
- Ravager (Talent)
- Dreadnaught (Talent)
Fury
- Bladestorm
Protection
- Ravager (Talent)
The AoE cap was introduced to prevent players from mass pulling dungeons using their cooldowns and burning it all down, and Blizzard saw this as degenerate gameplay they wanted to move away from.
The cap also affected casual players or people who would like to farm old raids for transmog, where the fastest way to clear an old raid would be to pull mass mobs and 1 shot everything, but with the AoE cap only hitting 5 targets it felt a bit out of place needing to use multiple abilities to kill 10-year-old content.
This list is subject to change, and Blizzard will be tuning classes to deal with the extra damage from the removal of the cap during the PTR.
There is currently no date for the addition of these changes to the PTR or live servers.
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