A new update for World of Warcraft has gone live, adding a new Raid, new dungeon mechanics, and new rewards.
The Raid is called Battle of Dazar’alor, and it will focus on an Alliance attack on the Zandalari capital, Dazar’alor, while the Horde does their best to defend it. In gameplay terms, both factions will (rather uniquely) take different paths through the Raid, having their own unique encounters and also getting the opportunity to play through events from the opposing factions viewpoint. There will be 9 bosses to tackle on your way through the raid, apparently including a King Kong wannabe and a bloke made entirely from coins. Both Normal and Heroic difficulty modes for Battle of Dazar’alor are now open, while the Raid Finder Wing 1 and Mythic raids will unlock on January 29th. Players need to be level 120 to tackle the raid, the minimum item level for the Raid Finder is 350.
Also in the update, there are two new chapters for each factions War Campaign questline. Blizzard says that these two new chapters will both precede and follow on from the Battle of Dazar’alor raid, allowing players to experience the build up to the battle as well as the aftermath.
The update also sees the beginning of PvP Season 2, which brings an updated Conquest reward schedule, mounts, and gear. Earning 500 Conquest points in a given week through Arenas, Battlegrounds, or War Mode will still allow you to choose a piece of gear from each weeks selection, but you’ll now also earn a Quartermaster’s Coin, which can be used to upgrade the Sinister Gladiator PvP set.
There are also increases to both difficulty and rewards in a variety of activities. Maximum item level is being increased to 425, and the difficulty of Heroic and Mythic dungeons is also being increased, with Mythic dungeons now dropping baseline 370 item level gear. Gear from Mythic Keystone Dungeons has also been increased accordingly, but the max item level will be capped at 385 until the Mythic Raid opens next week.
Speaking of Mythic Keystone Dungeons, there’s also a new tier 3 affix called “Reaping”. When Reaping is active, all non-boss enemies have a chance to come back as a ghost to attempt to avenge their own death, meaning there’s a chance that you’ll have a horde (no pun intended) of enemies that you’ve already killed coming after you while you’re trying to progress. Thankfully, these ghosts will only have about half of their usual health pool, and they can only respawn at set intervals, namely 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% through the progress bar. This means that you should be able to prepare for their arrival, and also that they should be much easier to kill the second time around, but it still sounds like a massive pain in the arse.
On top of this, there are also new pieces of Azerite armor available through the new raid, world quests, and PvP. Azerite armor that is item level 370 or higher will also have the addition of a fifth ring that will offer new trait options.
As always, you can read the full update notes here.
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