World of Warcraft’s upcoming 8.2 patch is set to make some noticeable changes to the oft-maligned Azerite Armor system. Through a new Heart of Azeroth equipment mechanic, players will unlock and equip special Essence powers which bolster certain playstyles. Thanks to a recent WoWHead post (https://www.wowhead.com/news=291243/patch-8-2-rise-of-azshara-all-heart-of-azeroth-essence-abilities-and-sources), we now know what those Essence powers will be.
World of Warcraft Patch 8.2 Essence Powers
The 8.2 update, titled Rise of Azshara, groups these new Essence powers into a series of categories. First, there are universal Essences which are freely available to every class regardless of their specialization. There are also specialization-focused Essences for Tank, Healer, and Damage (DPS). Lastly, there’s a pair of Essences whose functionality depends on the specific specialization resource being used.
Each Essence power grants a major (active) and minor (passive) ability. We’ve catalogued all currently known Essence powers below based on their respective categories.
Universal
Azeroth’s Undying Gift
- Major Power: All incoming damage is reduced by 40 percent for two seconds after use. Then, all incoming damage is reduced by 20 percent for the next two seconds.
- Minor Power: If you fall below 35 percent of your total health, your armor will be significantly boosted for four seconds. Then, you’ll get a less powerful armor boost for the next four seconds. This effect can only trigger once every two minutes.
Engine of Ceaseless Prophet
- Major Power: Create a small pool of Azerite energy which lasts for 10 seconds. While standing in the pool your haste, critical strike, and mastery stats are buffed every 0.5 seconds. Any preexisting buffs you received from your minor power are also doubled.
- Minor Power: You receive a buff every two seconds which boosts either your haste, critical strike, or mastery. When a single buff reaches ten stacks it will double, cancelling all buffs and restarting the process.
Crucible of Flame
- Major Power: Unleash a flame attack which damages an enemy or heals an ally. Each subsequent use stacks the damage/healing effects, with the stacking bonus resetting after three casts.
- Minor Power: All of your attacks have a chance of triggering a 10-second buff called Ancient Flame. While active, Ancient Flame increases your critical strike and leech stats. Your current target is also affected with a damage-over-time (if an enemy) or healing-over-time (if an ally) effect. Using your major power also grants five seconds of Ancient Flame.
Tank
Aegis of the Deep
- Major Power: Reduce damage taken and heal when damaged for the next 10 seconds.
- Minor Power: Gain a stacking versatility buff for every nearby enemy. Each stack of the buff also grants a stacking healing effect every four seconds. If you trigger this effect when below 35 percent health, the versatility buff is doubled.
Sphere of Suppression
- Major Power: Your movement speed is buffed by 50 percent while all nearby enemies have their movement speed reduced by 70 percent. Damage you receive from affected enemies is also reduced by 10 percent.
- Minor Power: Any enemy that strikes you with a melee attack has their attack speed lowered by eight percent. You also gain haste and attack speed for every enemy afflicted by this power.
Nullification of Dynamo
- Major Power: Trigger a shield which absorbs all incoming magic damage for 10 seconds. The shield also instantly cleanses you of all negative status effects.
- Minor Power: You gain a small magic-absorbing shield every 15 seconds. The shield can’t absorb much damage, but when it absorbs enough it explodes, damaging all nearby enemies.
Touch of the Everlasting
- Major Power: If your health is reduced to zero, you instantly recover 10 percent of your total health instead of dying. Also, all damage you take for the next 10 seconds is reduced by 85 percent. This power can only be triggered once every 7.5 minutes.
- Minor Power: Your versatility is permanently bolstered. However, if you die your versatility is reduced by half, though it will be restored after 7.5 minutes.
Anima of Life and Death
- Major Power: Use up 10 percent of your total health to unleash an area-of-effect flame attack. You heal 10 percent of your total health for each enemy hit by the attack, capping at 50 percent.
- Minor Power: You gain a stacking health increase buff every four seconds which goes up to 15 stacks. However, if you fall below 35 percent total health, you’ll lose the entire buff.
Damage
Blood of the Enemy
- Major Power: Unleash an area-of-effect shadow attack on all nearby enemies. Enemies hit by the attack take shadow damage and receive a pair of debuffs. These debuffs increase your chances of hitting them with a critical strike and boost the critical strike damage they take.
- Minor Power: Landing a critical strike with a spell grants the Blood of the Enemy buff. This buff can stack up to 25 times, granting increased critical strike chance with each stack. When you reach 25 stacks, your haste is buffed for 12 seconds and all the stacks are consumed. However, there’s also a 25 percent chance that only15 stacks are consumed.
Guardian of Azeroth
- Major Power: You summon a Guardian of Azeroth NPC ally who fights at your side for 20 seconds. Every time the guardian lands an attack, your haste increases by four percent. This haste buff stacks up to five times and ends when the guardian despawns.
- Minor Power: All of your attacks have a chance of impaling your target with a Spike of Azerite. Impaling an enemy deals damage and also increases all subsequent damage you deal to them.
Essence of the Focusing Iris
- Major Power: Deal sustained damage to all targets in front of you for 2.5 seconds. This ability can be channeled while moving.
- Minor Power: A stacking buff increases your haste every two seconds. When the buff reaches 10 stacks, it resets. Every time the buff resets you have a chance of blasting your current target with a bolt of damage.
The Unbound Force
- Major Power: Hit your target with a damage-over-time attack which has a 25 percent increased chance to critically strike. If a critical strike lands, another attack is triggered, stacking up to five times.
- Minor Power: Every critical strike you land grants a stacking buff called Reckless Force. The buff can stack up to seven times and grants bonus damage every 10 seconds based on number of stacks.
Purification Protocol
- Major Power: Target area is hit with a massive beam attack. The beam deals damage over six seconds and has a small chance of instantly killing damaged enemies,
- Minor Power: Your spells and attacks heal you over time if they hit enemies in the beam area.
Healer
Artifice of time
- Major Power: Place a shield on your current target which lasts for six seconds. While the shield is active, the target absorbs all incoming damage and healing. When the shield expires, the absorbed damage and healing is instantly applied but the damage is reduced by 20 percent.
- Minor Power: Your heals have a high chance of applying a buff which boosts haste and speed.
Life-Binder’s Invocation
- Major Power: All allies within 30 yard are granted 40 Seeds of Eonar. The seeds heal your allies over time and whenever they take damage. Any seeds leftover after the buff expires reduce the power’s three-minute cooldown by two seconds.
- Minor Power: Each heal you cast has a chance of buffing your target with a single Seed of Eonar.
The Ever-Rising Tide
- Major Power: For the next 10 seconds, you gain a stacking buff which increases your healing and haste stats. However, you also don’t regenerate any mana during that 10 seconds.
- Minor Power: Every heal you cast has a chance of restoring mana or temporarily increasing your intelligence stat. There’s also a 20 percent chance you’ll gain both.
The Well of Existence
- Major Power: Actively release overheals stored in the Well of Existence (as per the below minor power). Doing so also boosts your healing output by 20 percent.
- Minor Power: 30 percent of your overheals are stored in the Well of Existence. If you’re healing a target below 60 percent health, the Well automatically contributes its own healing as well.
Vitality Conduit
- Major Power: Place a Vitality Conduit on the ground which attaches itself to the nearest ally. Twice a second for six seconds, that ally absorbs health from your highest-health ally, healing them for a large amount.
- Minor Power: All of your single-target heals have a chance of creating a healing burst. This burst can affect up to five friendly targets in ten yards. However, if no other allies are affected by the burst your initial heal doubles.
Resource
Memory of Lucid Dreams
- Major Power: Temporarily boost your class-specific resource regeneration (Rage, Mana, Energy, etc.) by 100 percent. Your leech stat is also increased.
- Minor Power: Spells and abilities that cost resources have a chance of refunding 50 percent of their cost and healing you. Whenever this refund effect occurs, your versatility is also buffed.
Vision of Perfection
- Major Power: Your spells and abilities have a chance of triggering your specialization-specific cooldown ability for 50 percent of its normal duration. Once this occurs, the normal cooldown of the ability is also reduced by 10 seconds.
- Minor Power: The cooldown for your specialization-specific ability is permanently reduced by 15 percent and your versatility is increased by 85. Also, using the ability instantly heals you for five percent of your total health.
For more on World of Warcraft, be sure to read about its previously released 8.1 content update (https://www.vgr.com/everything-we-know-about-world-of-warcrafts-8-1-update/). We’ve also got the skinny on what patch 8.1 and patch 8.2 bring to the table (https://www.vgr.com/blizzard-details-world-of-warcrafts-next-two-major-content-patches/).