That age of “batching” in World of Warcraft Classic has come to an end with the introduction of Patch 1.13.7 today.
Prior to today, spells and abilities in WoW Classic were “batched” together in a 400-millisecond window that caused massive frustration for modern-day players with high-speed internet.
Batching was a part of WoW in 2004 to 2006, but it was implemented in large part because of often inconsistent internet connections for players of that time.
Of course, players of today’s day and age are accustomed to having significantly more powerful internet connections that make a 400-millisecond batching window less than ideal, to say the least.
Today’s patch has reduced that batching window from 400 milliseconds to just 10 milliseconds. This will give many players a heightened sense of control when doing all forms of content.
Meanwhile, the patch added a couple more quality-of-life changes that Blizzard was significantly more reluctant to add when it was under the impression that its fan base wanted “#NoChanges.”
Buff prioritization system
Along with changes to batching, Blizzard has implemented a buff prioritization system. While there’s still a limit to the number of buffs a player can have at one time, the buff that gets “pushed off” after you hit the cap will now depend on its duration or impact.
In the past, most top raiding guilds would specifically tell healers not to put healing-over-time (HOT) effects on tanks because of the potential it had to “push off” extremely powerful world buffs.
With this new buff priority system, players can HOT the tank freely without worrying about them losing Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer or another important buff.
Chronoboon Displacer
Speaking of buffs, today also marks the introduction of the Chronoboon Displacer that was added to the PTR earlier this month.
The item, which can be purchased from Chromie in the Western Plaguelands, is a way for players to store world buffs like Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, Dire Maul Tribute buffs, and Warchief’s Blessing.
The Displacer is a way for players to maximize the time remaining on their world buffs without having to worry about getting summoned all over Azeroth.
It also serves as an anti-griefing mechanic. A few players in the Classic community have been known to intentionally seek out people with world buffs and either dispel those buffs or kill the people with them.
To a large extent, the Displacer will help players who are especially careful with their buffs from having them dispelled.
