World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

The roads in Northrend are icy and fraught with danger. To help you prepare for the Call of the Crusade content update, players will get the benefit of the Joyous Journeys experience buff*, which will increase experience gains by 50% for all players through level 80! It’s a great time to finish leveling a character, create a new one, or invite friends to join you in your adventures.

Players can also visit any innkeeper in the capital cities and Dalaran to turn the experience buff off or on. The Joyous Journey’s experience buff will be available from May 23 through June 19, 2023.

*Experience buff not available in modern World of Warcraft® or World of Warcraft® Classic Era.

Greetings,

We are preparing for a new 1.14.4 patch for WoW Classic Era to support WoW Classic Hardcore realms. In addition to official Hardcore realms, this patch will also include a large update to the vanilla PvP honor system for all Classic Era realms.

This patch will completely reset all current honor system ranking progress on all Classic Era realms when it’s released.

While we do not have a specific date to share yet for when the patch will be released, we want you to know that it will likely arrive in the next 8-12 weeks. If you’re in the middle of ranking in WoW Classic Era, you may want to take that timeframe into account before continuing. If you’re about to start ranking a character, you may not have enough time to hit Rank 14 before the patch arrives and your progress is lost.

Please know that we do not take something like a PvP ranking progress reset lightly. The updates we’re making to the Classic Era version of the game are required for the long-term health of that version of the game.

We look forward to providing more information on this when we open the Classic Era patch 1.14.4 PTR sometime in the next several weeks.

Thank you.

Classes

• Monk
  
  • Fixed an issue causing Weapons of Order to incorrectly increase enemy damage taken from trinket and embellishment effects.
    
• Shaman
  
  • Enhancement
    
    • Fixed an issue where using Windstrike in Ascendance while talented into Legacy of the Frost Witch and Thorim's Invocation was not properly resetting the cooldown of Windstrike when gaining the Legacy of the Frost Witch buff.
      
• Warlock
  
  • Demonology
    
    • Fixed an issue where Ripped through the Portal would not function on Magmorax's platform.
      
    • Fixed an issue where Dread Calling would not function on Magmorax's platform.
      
    • Fixed an issue where Infernal Command would not function on Magmorax's platform.
      

Dungeons and Raids

• Mythic+
  
  • Neltharus
    
    • Forgemaster Gorek
      
      • [With weekly restarts] Reduced the duration of Blazing Aegis reduced to 4 seconds (was 6 seconds).
        
  • Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
    
    • Bromach
      
      • [With weekly restarts] The health of Quaking totem has been reduced by 20%.
        
  • The Vortex Pinnacle
    
    • Asaad
      
      • [With weekly restarts] Reduced the health of Skyfall Nova by 10%.
        

Enemies and NPCs

• Zaralek Cavern
  
  
  • [With weekly restarts] The loot lockout now resets when the content in a given area of the map becomes available. Now, when world quests are visible in an area, the rare elite enemies in that area will also be available. Rare elite rewards have been increased to offset their reduced frequency.
    
    • Developers’ notes: Unlike Forbidden Reach, the rare elites in Zaralek Cavern are meant to be a bonus, rather than the primary activity.
      

Quests

• The extra Effervesta will not be present during the “Best Friends” quest chain.
  
• Fyrakk is looking for more folks to burninate during “Aiding the Accord: Suffusion Camp,” so this quest can now be offered to qualifying alts between levels 60 and 66 (was 67+).

Each week we’ll look ahead to what’s in store for World of Warcraft, share the latest news, and keep you in the know byte by byte. The icy winds of Icecrown continue to blow, and it won’t be long until they croon with the Call of the Crusade.

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Heed the Call of the Crusade the Week of June 20

It won’t be long before the Call of the Crusade goes out across the lands of Northrend. Wrath of the Lich King™. Here’s what’s in store-

Arriving June 20 with the update:

• (New) Titan Rune Dungeons—Defense Protocol Beta: Embrace the challenge of Titan Rune Dungeons, where you’ll take on a new higher-level difficulty in which creatures and bosses have a variety of dangerous new effects as well as additional health and damage. Bosses killed with Defense Protocol Beta active award loot from the 10-player version of Ulduar. The final boss will also award a new currency: Sidereal Essence. Sidereal essence may be exchanged for rewards from 10-player Hard Mode Ulduar gear at the Animated Constellation vendor in Dalaran.
  
• Trial of the Champion- Head to the Crusader's Coliseum at the Argent Tournament to begin the challenge in this 5-player dungeon.
  
• The Argent Tournament: Join the Argent Tournament to undertake new quests and daily quests while showing off your jousting prowess for new rewards.
  
• Wrath of the Lich King PvP Season 7 Begins

Opening on June 22 at 3:00 p.m. PDT (6:00 p.m. EDT)

• Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader: Undertake the challenges of the Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader 10 and 25-player raid.
  
• Level 80 Onyxia’s Lair: Face Onyxia in her lair in the level 80 version of this encounter

We look forward to seeing you on the tournament grounds.

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News and Events This Week

• May 23
  
  • (Event) Wrath Classic: The Joyous Journeys 50% Experience Buff Returns
    
  • (Event) Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Raid Finder Wing 2 Opens
    
  • (Event) PvP Brawl: Deep Six
    
  • (Event) Step into the Firelands During Cataclysm Timewalking
    
• May 25
  
  • (Promotion) New Promotion
    
  • (Event) New in-game event
    
• May 26
  
  • (Article) Blues News
    
  • (Reminder) Purchase the Guardian Pack by May 31
    
  • (Reminder) Last Day for the May Trading Post, May 31
    

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Stay tuned here to the official World of Warcraft news site as we journey through the week together.