Update (8:45 PM EDT): Added tonight's hotfixes
Update (1:15 PM EDT): Added the PTR notes

Overwatch Beta - October 27
Overwatch closed beta begins in less than two weeks! Check out Overpwn for all of the details.



Patch 6.2.3 Preview
Patch 6.2.3 is on the way, bringing some changes to hold us over until Legion:

  • Cataclysm dungeons are getting Timewalking: Grim Batol, Stonecore, Lost City of Tol’vir, The Vortex Pinnacle, Throne of Tides, and End Time
  • Pit of Saron and Magister’s Terrace are also getting Timewalking.
  • An Infinite Dragonflight mount (Infinite Timereaver) has a chance to drop from any Timewalking dungeon boss.
  • Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding will be enabled.
  • Valor has returned! It is earned from Heroic and Mythic Dungeons, various Bonus Events, and your first Raid Finder run each week.
  • Mythic dungeons will be the most lucrative source of Valor.
  • Mythic dungeons can drop a Heirloom Trinket that will scale to level 110.
  • Items can be upgraded by 10 item levels.
  • Defeating Archimonde on Heroic difficulty or higher will reward the Grove Warden mount (for a limited time)!
  • Mythic Warforged items can be even higher item level now, anywhere from 685 to 725 in five item-level increments.
  • Baleful items can also be higher item level, anywhere from level 655 all the way to 695.
  • Warlords Season 3 is coming, with Warmongering Aspirant gear at PvP item level 715, Warmongering Combatant gear at 730, and Warmongering Gladiator gear at 740.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Patch 6.2.3 will be making its way onto the PTR soon, and we wanted to provide you with some insights on what it has in store.

We’ve made no secret of our desire to expand the role and importance of dungeons in World of Warcraft as we move full speed ahead toward Legion. We look forward to sharing more of our plans in that regard during BlizzCon 2015 next month. At the same time, we’ve heard from many players that they wanted more reasons to run dungeons in Warlords, so we’re pleased to announce this small patch, which is focused on reinforcing the reward systems around our existing dungeons as well as expanding the scope of the Timewalking feature that we introduced in patch 6.2.

Timewalk With Me: New Timewalking Dungeons
Get ready to go back in time to experience six iconic dungeons from Cataclysm with this new Timewalking bonus event. You’ll be able to face the foes within Grim Batol, Stonecore, Lost City of Tol’vir, The Vortex Pinnacle, Throne of Tides, and End Time once more and reap the treasures within.

To round out our Timewalking journey, we’ll also be adding the Pit of Saron to the Wrath of the Lich King Timewalking bonus event and the Magister’s Terrace to the Burning Crusade Timewalking bonus event.


Lest we forget, there’s just one more bit of news that’s bound to draw you into the vortex to do a little Timewalking. Players will now have a chance to loot a rare Infinite Timereaver mount from any Timewalking boss.

Developer Insights
One of the most common requests we’ve heard ever since introducing Timewalking was for there to be some way to obtain an Infinite Dragonflight mount, since it’d fit perfectly with the theme of time manipulation, aside from being just plain cool-looking. We agree. Inspired by Murozond, the final boss of the End Time dungeon that is included in the Cataclysm Timewalking rotation, the Infinite Timereaver will be a rare drop from any dungeon boss during all of the Timewalking events.


Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding
With the patch we’ll also be introducing Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding. You’ll now be able to join with friends, fill that one last spot, or have an easier time recruiting to backfill missing raid slots, allowing you to take on some of the most difficult encounters in Warlords of Draenor.

Valor for the Valorous
With the patch we’ll be bringing back Valor as a currency. You’ll will be able earn Valor once more by taking part in Heroic and Mythic Dungeons, from various Bonus Events, and via the first run through Raid Finder each week. To upgrade, visit your friendly neighborhood ethereal to upgrade gear up to five item levels at a time, up to two times per piece of gear.

Developer Insights
Dungeon content shines when its difficulty is appropriate to players’ power level, so Mythic dungeons will be the most lucrative source of Valor for players who have items from Tanaan or Hellfire Citadel. For those who are still gearing up to tackle Mythic dungeons, or who prefer to use queued matchmaking, Raid Finder wings and the first Heroic dungeon each day will also provide Valor, as will most of Seer Kazal’s weekly event quests. Ethereal Voidbinders have made their way through time and space to Stormshield and Warspear, as well as returning to Orgrimmar and Stormwind, to allow players to use this Valor to upgrade their gear by up to 10 item levels. We decided to go with item upgrades rather than a Valor vendor because item upgrades offer power that complements items from other sources rather than competing with them.

Gift of the Grove Warden
Soon, players who dare to face the fearsome might of Archimonde will receive an added bonus. For a limited time, defeating Archimonde on Heroic difficulty or higher will reward players with a mysterious fragment of dark power that begins a quest. When you bring this fragment to the druids of Moonglade, you’ll learn a little more about what’s in store for Azeroth, and the druids will give you a majestic Grove Warden mount in thanks for your efforts. This quest won’t be available forever—our current plan is to retire the quest in an update some time before Legion’s launch, so grab some friends and head to Hellfire Citadel while you can.


More Bigger Better: Item Rewards
We’re expanding the range of item quality for players within Mythic Dungeons and Tanaan Jungle. Players who take part in Mythic Dungeons will have a chance to gain items up to item level 725, and players who receive Baleful items will now have a chance to gain items up to item level 695. Players in Mythic Dungeons will also now have a chance to loot a new Heirloom Trinket that will scale to level 110.

Developer Insights
Running a dungeon is a bit more exciting when there’s a chance you might get a direct item upgrade, versus simply earning a predictable amount of currency per run. Thus, we’re also expanding the power of Warforged items in Mythic dungeons—rather than a static +20 item level bonus when a Mythic dungeon item is Warforged, there will be a chance for even greater increases in power. The very luckiest players might even obtain item level 725 versions of the dungeon drops, with increasingly better odds of 720, 715, and so forth, fully spanning the range from 685 to 725 in five item-level increments. We’re also applying this system to Baleful items from Tanaan itself, which can now range in quality from item level 655 all the way to 695. Raiding, crafting, and PvP will remain the most reliable sources of the best gear available, but we’d like to create the chance for surprise when you’re adventuring out in the world or in dungeons.

Arena Season 3
We’re also preparing to end Warlords Arena Season 2 and transition to Warlords Arena Season 3. We’ll have more details to share on this transition between seasons and the distribution of rewards in the near future.

Developer Insights
With Arena Season 3 we’ll be introducing new gear, including Warmongering Aspirant gear at PvP item level 715, Warmongering Combatant gear at 730, and Warmongering Gladiator gear at 740.

Make sure you keep an eye out for the complete patch, 6.2.3 notes and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the Public Test Realm.

Patch 6.2.3 PTR Notes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
New Timewalking Dungeons
  • A new Cataclysm Timewalking Bonus Event has been added to the holiday rotation, featuring the following dungeons:
    • End Time
    • Grim Batol
    • Lost City of Tol’vir
    • Stonecore
    • The Vortex Pinnacle
    • Throne of Tides
  • The existing Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King Timewalking events have been expanded to include an additional dungeon each:
    • Magister’s Terrace (Burning Crusade)
    • Pit of Saron (Wrath of the Lich King)
  • New rare mount: Infinite Timereaver, has been added as a random drop from any Timewalking boss.
  • Added a vendor near the Cataclysm portals in Stormwind and Orgrimmar during the Cataclysm Timewalking Bonus Event that sells modernized Cataclysm gear and cool new toys.

Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding
  • Cross-Realm raiding has been enabled for Hellfire Citadel on Mythic difficulty. You’ll now be able to join with friends or fill that last raid spot to take on the most difficult encounters in Warlords of Draenor.

Item Upgrades and Valor are back!
  • Item upgrades are back! Players will be able to earn and spend Valor to upgrade items from Hellfire Citadel, items created from Baleful tokens in Tanaan Jungle, and all Draenor dungeon drops. All the items you’ve already earned are eligible for upgrades retroactively.
  • Characters can earn Valor in a number of ways.
    • Completing the first random Heroic Dungeon of the day
    • Completing Mythic Dungeons
    • Completing weekly Bonus Event quests
    • Completing a Raid Finder wing for Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry, or Hellfire Citadel for the first time each week.
  • To upgrade, visit your friendly neighborhood ethereal in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, or Stormshield and Warspear to upgrade your gear by 5 item levels at a time, up to twice per item, for a total potential boost of 10 item levels.

Improved Item Rewards
Mythic Dungeon Loot Improvements
  • Mythic Dungeons now have a chance to award items ranging from item level 685 to 725 in 5-item-level increments, with a progressively lower chance as item level increases.
  • Mythic Dungeon bosses now also have a chance to drop a new Heirloom Trinket that will scale up to level 110.
Baleful Item Level Boost
  • Baleful items now have a chance to create items ranging in quality from item level 655 to 695 in 5-item-level increments, with a progressively lower chance as item level increases.

Warlords Season 3
  • Around the release of Patch 6.2.3, a transition to Warlords Season 3 will take place. More information and details on the close of Warlords Season 2 and transition to the new season will be available in the future.
  • With the new season comes new gear. New Warmongering Aspirant gear scales up to PvP item level 715, Warmongering Combatant gear scales to 730, and Warmongering Gladiator gear scales to 740.

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel
  • Defeating Archimonde on Heroic difficulty or higher will reward players with a mysterious fragment of dark power that begins a quest which will lead to the Grove Warden mount.

Items
  • Increased the drop rates of Felblight from Skinning, Mining, Herbalism, and Fishing by about 20%.

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - Oct 14
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel
  • Mannoroth
    • Mannoroth's Fel Hellstorm and Empowered Fel Hellstorm now deals 20% less damage on all difficulties.
    • Fixed an issue where Mannoroth's Gaze could cause players to fall through the world.
Collections
Toy Box
  • Fruit Basket is no longer usable inside raid instances.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 6.2.3 Preview started by chaud View original post
Comments 317 Comments
  1. Valentyn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    If it's easier to obtain gear (especially through 5-man content) you're going to increase your pool of raiders, regardless.

    I'm good with dungeons...feel a lot better than farming Tanaan endlessly in-between queues/begging for dps invites to LFG raids/getting fed up and organizing one myself (which I hate doing). Wrath was very dungeon-heavy and I never got tired of them.
    iLevel doesn't make a mythic raider. Most people try, and we have 2-3 trials every two weeks. They keep failing mechanics ,despite having gear. I doubt this is going to do more bar bloat ilevel, and force people to endlessly grind dungeons again.
    I got burnt out on dungeon running in TBC. Can't stand it now bar 1-2 times for the story elements.
  1. Vezri's Avatar
    It's Blizzard's last chance to do something with BSC/Karabor - they should put Valor vendors there, like Niuzao Temple/Great Wall :P
  1. johnnysd's Avatar
    I think the butthurt elitist raiders, who think they are the only one entitled to decent gear are in for a rude awakening in Legion...expect things to be very WOTLK like in Legion including Valor and much much more emphasis on end game content other than raiding.
  1. Slirith's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyres View Post
    Just remember folks this patch is likely the cause of horrible Q3 numbers and them trying to soften those for Q4 and that Legion won't be launched untill around mid to late 2016.
    Agreed 100% with this
  1. Zoldor's Avatar
    Does this mean Legion is closer to coming out or farther from coming out?

    Also, anyone confused on Valor its a simple reasoning. We have tons of Apexis and they don't want you to be able walk over to the upgrade guy and max all your gear out. So it was either make it an obscene amount of Apexis to upgrade or re-add another currency. The latter being the smarter choice.

    I really want that mount from timewalking though (love dragons, I'm 32 and they are just part of high fantasy for me...fuck you), but the moose is a moose. Thankfully maybe it will provoke my Canadian raid friends to come back. Is that racist?
  1. Breccia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Masternewt View Post
    This patch smells like desperation.
    The Blizz team ate desperation for lunch that day. That's probably what you're smelling. The patch itself is mostly leftovers.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoldor View Post
    Does this mean Legion is closer to coming out or farther from coming out?
    Everything they added was relatively easy. No new dungeons, no new items, one new mount. There is nothing in this patch (notes) that even implies we'll have an under 12 month raid tier.
  1. Sliske's Avatar
    WoW dev cycle 1.0 - 3.3:

    Add , improve , add, improve, add, improve

    WoW dev cycle 4.0 - 6.2.3:

    Remove, add it back in a patch or two later, remove, add it back in a patch or two later, remove, add it back in a patch or two later

    God damnit, Blizzard.
  1. Chudah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by gobblerofgoo View Post
    They are removing pvp gear next xpack anyways idk why they felt the need to make a new even more outrageously powerful set for this xpack.
    I hazard a guess that it'll serve as a quick gear catch up for people to take into Legion, which will also get more people into PvP. I don't see an issue with it. The gear will be outdated as you level to 110. I still won't step foot in PvP though. It's been horrible since MoP.
  1. Lery's Avatar
    No new content. Recycle the old instances that we have already done. Add more grind. This is supposed to hold us over until June 2016 when Legion releases? My god!
  1. Manstus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Valentyn View Post
    iLevel doesn't make a mythic raider. Most people try, and we have 2-3 trials every two weeks. They keep failing mechanics ,despite having gear. I doubt this is going to do more bar bloat ilevel, and force people to endlessly grind dungeons again.
    I got burnt out on dungeon running in TBC. Can't stand it now bar 1-2 times for the story elements.
    The people who understand "ilevel doesn't make a mythic raider" are not mythic raiders. This will increase the pool of people who want to be mythic raiders, and then flame out and quit 3 months later when they realize mythic raiding is actually hard. It just keeps them subscribed a couple more months.
  1. mmoc88aff028a6's Avatar
    seriously ppl saying about HC Archi? like wtf ive killed it soooo many times - guild and pug grps... its easy as hell, remember its old style NORMAL mode.. n00bs
  1. Magistrate's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lery View Post
    No new content. Recycle the old instances that we have already done. Add more grind. This is supposed to hold us over until June 2016 when Legion releases? My god!
    Can you please calm down? They already said Tanaan and HFC was the last content patch for WoD months ago. This isn't them pretending the patch to be anything that it isn't and they're basically done with WoD. They said it's a "small patch."

    TBH, this patch is better than the selfie cam one.

    Grinding does kind of suck, but only when the rewards are meaningless. This gives me some stuff to do and some goals. I haven't bothered with ilvl since I'm basically stuck in mid heroic HFC due to my guild falling apart over WoD's suckiness.
  1. gobblerofgoo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Manstus View Post
    The people who understand "ilevel doesn't make a mythic raider" are not mythic raiders. This will increase the pool of people who want to be mythic raiders, and then flame out and quit 3 months later when they realize mythic raiding is actually hard. It just keeps them subscribed a couple more months.

    Adding really easy near mythic level gear and increasing item levels may bring up the uncommon player who is in a shit guild but wants to move up and can't get the time of the day. But for the most part all it will do is cause i lvl bloat. There are alot of bad players out there who could be given full BIS and still not be prepared for Mythic raiding regardless of whether they think they are or not. Shit my guild has had 1-2 people on the roster in the past that really don't have any business being there but we couldn't find a replacement that could even out do them.
  1. Mrbleedinggums's Avatar
    I'm pretty excited about this. Idk why everyone else is raging. More timewalking dungeons, actual reason to do mythic/heroic dungeons for mythic raiding progression with ilvl boosts. Infinite dragon mount to chase as well as another heirloom trinket, and my favorite moose mount that I shall ride everywhere is obtainable in game (what now, naysayers on store mounts only?) and a possible non-static mythic raid id with cross realm enabled? Yea. I'm game.
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    And I disagree. Pure statistics dictate that there are bound to be people who do understand that Mythic raiding is more than ilvl but aren't in it for x, y, z, reasons.

    By these arguments, anybody who isn't a mythic raider now would never be one. Which, unless you're a delusional turd, you know is complete bollocks.
    you don't have to be a mythic raider if your ilvl provides enough of a crutch, isn't that the point of the valor upgrades?
  1. roahn the warlock's Avatar
    idk what happened at blizzard. But well done, well fucking done.
  1. Chrysaora's Avatar
    This pear, so delicious
  1. mmoc17dca7fbbd's Avatar
    I think this indicates the absolute end of an expansion, next patch i assume would be around xmas/january and that will Legion pre-launch event patch

    Like these changes, more stuff to work on os always nice, more paths to progress a character are always welcome by me.
  1. Tryuk's Avatar
    Awesome, new stuff

    Also, End Time? Murozond is my favorite dungeon boss ever, this gonna be good. The other Cata choices aren't my favorite though. PoS... I remember that one earned another nickname from its acronym
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Naturalna View Post
    I think this indicates the absolute end of an expansion, next patch i assume would be around xmas/january and that will Legion pre-launch event patch

    Like these changes, more stuff to work on os always nice, more paths to progress a character are always welcome by me.
    Uh, this is a 6.2.3 preview, afaik it isn't on the PTR yet, which means we won't see 6.2.3 until December. If there is a pre launch event before April I would be shocked. in reality this patch is probably intended to keep people busy for 6 months, and then in late summer there might be a pre launch event with an early fall expac release.

    EDIT: I see that there are now PTR patch notes ...

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