World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

The next content update for Burning Crusade Classic, The Black Temple is now available! Revisit the original Black Temple Trailer with Lead Cinematic Narrative Designer Terran Gregory and take on Illidan the Betrayer today!


Lead Cinematic Narrative Designer Terran Gregory takes us down memory lane to the original 2.1 patch trailer as the Black Temple makes its way to Burning Crusade Classic.


On the week of January 17:

Incubus Warlock pet

Warlocks will be able to take part on a new quest to learn how to summon a variant Succubus pet—the Incubus.

A New PvP Season Begins

• At the start of this new PvP Season, Arena Season 3 gear will be available from Arena vendors in Shattrath and Nagrand.
  
• Arena Season 2 gear will be available at a discount from Area 52 vendors and will no longer require Arena rating to purchase.
  
• Arena Season 1 gear will be available from Honor vendors in the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar and Champion's Hall in Stormwind.

On January 27:

New Raid: The Battle for Mount Hyjal

Preserve the outcome of the pivotal Battle for Mount Hyjal and ensure the demon Archimonde meets his fate.

• Raid bosses: 5 (Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde)
• Level: 70
• Location: Caverns of Time, Tanaris

Players must be attuned to enter the instance. Read about the attunement process below. Improve your standing with the Scale of the Sands to earn rewards from Indormi in the Caverns of time.

New Raid: The Black Temple

Defeat the Betrayer himself—Illidan Stormrage—atop the Black Temple.

• Raid bosses: 9 (High Warlord Naj'entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, Teron Gorefiend, Gurtogg Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, The Illidari Council, Illidan Stormrage)
• Level: 70
• Location: The Black Temple, Shadowmoon Valley

Players must be attuned to enter the instance. Read about the attunement process below. Improve your standing with the Ashtongue Deathsworn to earn rewards from Okuno inside the Black Temple.

Epic Gems

• Epic gem Jewelcrating Designs will be available from Indormi in the Caverns of Time
  
• Epic gems can be obtained from Battle for Mount Hyjal through mining (requires 375 mining skill), and as rare drops from Black Temple

Netherwing daily quest hub

• Earn Netherwing reputation through daily quests in Shadowmoon Valley
  
• Collect Netherwing eggs to speed up reputation gains
  
• Epic Netherdrake mounts will be available to players that reach Exalted reputation (requires Artisan Riding skill)

Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep Loot

Bosses in those instances will drop one additional class set token for a total of 3

Complete the Battle for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple Attunements

Those who want to brave the two new raid instances must complete the required attunement quests first. The required quests must be completed once per character.

Battle for Mount Hyjal Attunement: Gaining entry to the Hyjal Summit

To access the Battle for Mount Hyjal, you must first travel to the Caverns of Time in Tanaris and find Soridormi. Soridormi will offer the quest “The Vials of Eternity” to those who are at least Revered with the Keepers of Time. You can earn reputation with the Keepers of Time in the Old Hillsbrad Foothills and Black Morass dungeons in the Caverns of time.

Complete the quest "The Vials of Eternity" by defeating Kael'thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep and Lady Vashj in Serpentshine Cavern and you will be attuned to the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid.

Black Temple Attunement: Gaining entry to the Black Temple

To earn a chance to face Illidan Stormrage, travel to Shadowmoon Valley and seek out Anchorite Ceyla at the Altar of Sha'tar (for the Aldor) or Arcanist Thelis at the Sanctum of the Stars (for the Scryers). Complete the following quests:

• Tablets of Baa'ri
  
• Oronu the Elder
  
• The Ashtongue Corruptors
  
• The Warden's Cage
  
• Proof of Allegiance
  
• Akama
  
• Seer Udalo
  
• A Mysterious Portent
  
• The Ata'mal Terrace
  
• Akama's Promises
  
  • After completing "Akama's Promise", the quest chain continues inside the Serpentshrine Cavern raid instance in Coilfang Reservoir (Zangarmarsh). Look for Seer Olum after defeating Fathom-Lord Karathress to pick up the next quest.
    
• The Secret Compromised
  
• Ruse of the Ashtongue
  
• An Artifact From the Past
  
  • “An Artifact From the Past” requires entry into the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid. The attunement quest for that raid must be completed in order to gain entry to the Black Temple.
    
• The Hostage Soul
  
• Entry into the Black Temple
  
• A Distraction for Akama

Completing "A Distraction for Akama" will award you the Medallion of Karabor, which allows its wearer entry into the Black Temple.

The Betrayer awaits those foolish enough to face him. You are not prepared. . . .

Hi Zuelase,

Thank you for the feedback! This is a topic that we have been closely following along and discussing internally. For some transparency, we want to be extra careful when adjusting significant systems such as rewards in Burning Crusade Classic. We strive for authentic recreations as the best approach with our design as substituting our own judgements has great potential to harm the spirit of the original game. For example, we risk negatively impacting the perceived value of these items or affecting other areas of the game by changing the rate of power progression.

That said, we hear your frustrations with the current rate of PvP reward acquisition and think there are ample reasons to justify a #change. When we compare PvE and its rewards, there’s a stark contrast with the level of effort and time investment required. Players are better now, all the best raid strategies have been figured out, and those rewards are much more accessible!

We attempted to address this in Season 2 by introducing PvP faction items early (a change introduced with Sunwell’s release) and reducing the costs of previous season gear by half, but we don’t think those changes were nearly enough.

The following changes are planned to release with tomorrow’s Phase 3 content unlock:

• PvP faction items now have an Honored reputation requirement (from Revered).
• The battleground mark costs for Season 1 gear have been removed.
• The battleground mark costs on Vindicator items have been reduced by half.
• The amount of bonus honor rewarded from the marks-to-honor repeatable quest has been increased.
• The Call to Arms daily quest now provides 3 battleground marks and the bonus honor reward has been increased.
• The Halaa and Terokkar PvP daily’s bonus honor reward has been significantly increased.
• The Hellfire Fortification PvP daily now provides a bonus honor reward.
• Tier 4 and 5 tokens can now be exchanged for season 1 and 2 gear at tier vendors.

We hope that this will make a significant impact. Please continue to tell us how you feel about this, we’ll be listening!

Burning Crusade Classic

• Serpentshrine Cavern
  
  • Enemies during the Hydross the Unstable and Leotheras the Blind encounters should no longer occasionally become stuck in the environment.

Achievements

• The achievement Unlocking the Secrets to learn Zereth Mortis Flying has been added.
  
  • Developers’ note: After listening to player feedback regarding access to Zereth Mortis Flying being too time consuming, we’ve made the change to now unlock flying more easily by completing a series of achievements around Zereth Mortis instead of researching Cyphers of the First Ones.

Classes

Mage

• Class Sets
  
  • Fire
    
    • 4-piece: No longer causes the Fire Mage to take damage over time while Combustion is active.

Warlock

• Contained Perpetual Explosion (Venthyr Runecarving Power) now caps the amount of bonus periodic damage it provides at 275% when hitting 10 additional targets.

Dungeons and Raids

• Mythic+
  
  • Affixes
    
    • New Seasonal Affix: Encrypted
      
      • Relic’s associated with which Automa summon have been adjusted in an effort to make them more intuitively match the resulting effect.
      • Vy’s Haste reduced to 15% (was 20%) and added an additional effect that deals Cosmic damage to the targeted enemy or healing to the caster’s friendly target when triggered.
      • Urh’s cooldown reduction increased to 200% (was 25%), and it restores 10% HP/Mana every 1 second. Duration reduced to 10 seconds (was 45 seconds).
      • Wo now also grants 15% damage reduction, and for the duration of the effect, you auto-Stealth any time you’re not in combat. Duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 45 seconds).

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