One of WOTLK Classic Gold: Wrath on the Lich King Classic's best weapons may be more powerful than meant for 14 years, all as a result of a simple typo that went unnoticed by both Blizzard and players back when the weapon first debuted last 2009.
The weapon involved is the Legendary healing mace Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings, which may be acquired by gathering fragments from your expansion's iconic Ulduar raid and completing subsequent quests. What makes the weapon so powerful is its special effect customized for healers. When using Val'anyr, heals use a chance to activate a shield on the respective targets that could absorb approximately 15% of the amount healed. Ulduar was released back in 2009 originally and arrived at Wrath with the Lich King Classic on January 19, 2023.
That helps it be an incredibly powerful weapon for tank healing, but as Blizzard notes in a very March 27 hotfix, the weapon's special effect was really stronger than originally intended because of a nearly 15-year-old typo. The shield granted through the weapon was always designed to cap out at 20,000, but another "0" inside the weapon's spell script actually made that amount of 200,000. That's a huge difference.
"The absorb shield from Val'anyr was always designed to have a cap of 20,000 health, but there was a typo from the spell script in original Wrath in the Lich King version 3.3.5," Blizzard's hotfix reads. "The script was set the absorbed cost you 200,000! This was never noticed by players in the original Wrath."
Now, the explanation for this bug looks to possess largely gone unnoticed for so very long is likely because of the fact that the amount of players who actually ever acquired Val'anyr way back in the day is actually comparatively small. Ulduar became a punishingly difficult raid in the event it debuted, as well as the long technique of acquiring Val'anyr caused it to be so exactly that the most dedicated players which were members with the best guilds had the opportunity to wield it. The final mission to obtain the weapon requires players to tennis ball so the fragments of Val'anyr to the mouth of the final boss, Yogg-saron, at a specific moment and then defeat it.
There's also the fact that these few players who did originally have the weapon likely never even approached the unintentional 200,000 shield cap, simply because the shield will be based upon 15% of the healing received. However, players completing Ulduar in 2023 have much more experience (and internet-based guides and resources) that can help min-max their characters, meaning more players are usually using Val'anyr now than way back in 2009. It also means that the shields granted as a result of the weapon's effect are less difficult and more likely how to surpass the intended cap of 20,000 compared to 2009, making the already powerful weapon extra potent last but not least catching Blizzard's eye.
wotlk classic gold released in September 2022, introduces the Death Knight on the old-school version of Blizzard's MMO. Since then Blizzard offers a number of changes for the game's hottest expansion, like the addition of any new dungeon difficulty and also the ability for players to build one Death Knight character free on the expansion's original restrictions. Blizzard recently reverted that specific change, yet again making it harder to make Death Knights so that you can deter bots and bad actors from having the ability to take advantage of easily setting up a level 55 character.
The Wall