World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

After battling their way through some intense qualifier cups, Europe’s top World of Warcraft Arena teams are ready to prove that they’re the best in the region. The Legion may have crashed into Azeroth since the last time they faced off, but these competitors will be ignoring the demon invasion in favor of PvP glory later this month.

The World of Warcraft Arena European Regional Championship will take place in Kiev, Ukraine from Friday, September 30 to Sunday, October 2. We’re heading to one of the biggest esports venues in Europe, the Kiev CyberSport Arena, where eight teams will fight for a share of $100,000 USD. And that’s not all—the top three teams will also qualify for the 2016 World of Warcraft Arena Championship at BlizzCon 2016, where they’ll take on the best players from around the globe.

Prizes
The $100,000 USD prize pool will be distributed as shown below, and the top three teams will advance to the final stage of the 2016 Arena Championship at BlizzCon 2016!

• 1st $50,000
• 2nd $20,000
• 3rd $10,000
• 4th $8,000
• 5th $4,000
• 6th $4,000
• 7th $2,000
• 8th $2,000

How to Watch
If you happen to be in Kiev, be sure to drop by and support your favorite team. Here’s some useful info:

Tournament dates: Friday, September 30 to Sunday, October 2

Address: CyberSport Arena, Vadyma Hetmana St, 13, Kiev, Ukraine

Starting time: 17:00 CEST (8:00 a.m. PDT)

If you can’t be there in person, you can also follow the action online by tuning in to our live streams on Twitch and YouTube. Coverage will be available in English and Russian.

Connect to Twitch to Earn a World of Warcraft Title
Show your love of WoW Arena and esports with a shiny new in-game title*, “Patron of War” when you connect Twitch to your Battle.net account and watch the European Regional Championships.

How to Link Your Accounts

• Log in or create an account on Twitch.
• Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the home screen.
• Navigate to the Connections tab of the Settings menu.
• Find the Battle.net section then follow the given instructions after selecting a region and clicking Connect.

Click here to go straight to the Twitch settings page.

See you at the European Regional Championship!

*You'll also be able to earn the Patron of War title by watching the North American Regionals on October 8 and 9. You'll need to connect your Twitch account to your Battle.net account as described above, and the title will be rewarded after both regional events have concluded.

PvP
how does rested xp for honor for exactly what's the rate you earn it at? Do you have to log off in an inn etc?
it works exactly like rested xp (holinka)

World
What was the design philosophy behind the elite area of Suramar? It's super frustrating, even with a group.
Agreed the spawning is too dense right now, but it's meant as a group combat area. Lots of Group Finder parties for WQs there. (WatcherDev)

As many players have noticed, we’ve been iterating somewhat rapidly on the rewards and cadence of the Warden Tower PvP World Quests. We wanted to take a moment to explain what’s happening, and why we’ve been tinkering with them so much.

Our goal for Warden Towers is that they should feel fun and rewarding, but still secondary to Arenas and Battlegrounds as an overall source of Honor. When Legion first launched, they were certainly lucrative, but so frequent that many players were earning the vast majority of their Honor by completing them. We tried to correct this by increasing the time it took for them to refresh, and reducing the amount of Honor they gave, but that brought us to the other extreme – they were no longer a primary source of Honor, but they didn’t feel rewarding enough for the time investment.

With the latest updates, we’ve increased the Honor rewarded for completing a Warden Tower back to 300, but they will only re-activate once every 24 hours. This means you should once again feel that completing one is worth your time, but you’ll still need to look to Arenas and Battlegrounds for the majority of your Honor. Warden Towers should now be properly filling their intended role in end-game PvP progression.

Bonus Events have returned in World of Warcraft: Legion, and the first is underway with a focus on Arena PvP.

What Are Bonus Events?

The Bonus Events system consists of a rotating schedule of different activities, currently scheduled to run each week beginning on Tuesdays. Each Bonus Event grants a passive bonus to a particular game activity and offers a once-per-event quest with a noteworthy reward for accomplishing a related goal. The in-game calendar can serve as your one-stop reference for the event schedule. The Adventure Guide also offers a direct link to active Bonus Events, allowing you to easily accept any associated quests.

Sharpen your swords and reinforce your boards, because you’re called to the PvP Arena for the hectic mayhem of Skirmishes.

This Week: Arena Skirmishes
All week, from anywhere in Azeroth, open the Group Finder (default hotkey: i), select the Player vs. Player tab on the bottom of the window, and then under Arena Battles, choose either 2v2 or 3v3 and JOIN BATTLE. You’ll be matched up with teammates and provided with opponents to kill in the Arena.

Look for the following all week long:

• Archmage Lan’dalock near Violet Hold in Dalaran has a quest for you.
  
  • Quest requirement: Win 10 Arena PvP Skirmishes
    
  • Reward: A PvP loot box
    
• Passive buff: +50% honor gains from Skirmishes

If you’ve been looking to make some Honor gains, this is the week to do it!

Raid Finder and Quest Chains
It is intentional that the quests “In Nightmares” and “Essence of Power” cannot be completed on Raid Finder difficulty. That quest chain is intended to provide a cosmetic reward for participating in organized, non-matchmade content. As such, we wanted to keep this step in line with the previous steps in the chain, which require completing Mythic Dungeons.

This restriction is specific to this quest chain, which has a cosmetic-only reward. Other quest chains, such as “The Stuff of Dreams” from the Suramar campaign, will be completable through Raid Finder. We’ll be making some additional changes in Patch 7.1 to more clearly communicate when and where these restrictions apply.

Thanks for confirming the inevitable. I'll be saving some money every month now, because I am done with this game. If this is intended and staying in the game, you just lost a customer. It is clear blizzard is clueless about their own game. I guess it's true, no King lives forever. Good luck everyone. Blizzard, you failed.
Again, a cosmetic reward we are reserving for those who participate in organized, non-matchmade content.

This is not something you, by any means, "need". And "needing" it on every alt, doubly so. If you desire it, then organize a raid or join a guild that will put you in their raiding ranks and dedicate the time to obtaining the items.

We simply disagree that these skins should be handed out without dedication and challenge.

I appreciate constructive feedback and discussion on this topic, and will discuss what's here with the developers once it's had time to settle, but anything that says "the world is ending" or "blizzard is killing their player-base" because not everyone will get a cosmetic skin is a bit of a fallacy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Cross-Realm Zones
We've stated this numerous times, but this is not new. CRZ has existed in Broken Isle zones since launch, however you may not have seen it active due to the amount of players leveling the same zone on your server.

Cross-realm technology activates automatically. I suspect that you may be seeing people from other realms since LFR opened today, and many players are trying out that newly opened content (hence, less players in the "world"). It's also 3pm PST on a weekday, which isn't what I'd consider peak-time.

No. People are confused because CRZ has never before been active on current content. Pandaria wasn't CRZ'd until 6.0. Draenor wasn't CRZ'd until 7.0.
We've had a bit of a shift in philosophy here with this expansion; some of this shift was influenced by the implementation of World Quests across Legion content. This would explain why CRZ was turned on for Pandaria with 6.0, but is active in 7.0 content now.

A bit of a larger conversation, part of which doesn't really fit a forum post from myself.

Again, just to reiterate, CRZ is intentional, but it should be not be massively disrupting the world and/or day-to-day activities. Seeing players from other realms is normal, seeing thousands of them, not so much.

It makes more sense now why it's happening so much after server restarts. People start logging in, CRZ code says "woah there's hardly any people in this area, TO THE MERGEMOBILE", then goes and takes a nap for 8 hours before realizing "hey i just put too many people together, oopsie-doodle".
I can't say for sure, but in my head this makes sense.

People are working, at school, or otherwise offline after our maintenance and restarts (Tuesdays, amirite?) - which would, in turn, activate CRZ. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP
sorry if it's been answered but is the pvp trinkets not working in pvp intended or bug rn??
intended. No trinkets, set bonuses or enchants work in PvP (holinka)

are artifact traits with %dmg increase after you unlock all 34, going to be useable in rated pvp? I hope not
No they are not (holinka)

Is it correct to assume the prestige rewards remain the same throughout seasons? Such as the bronze courser mount will still be awarded at that level in the next season, and new mount at later levels?
Yes. Current plan is to increase max prestige each season, with more rewards. Prestige level will not be reset until the next expansion. (WarcraftDevs)

Professions
Nomi is giving me recipes I already know. Intended?
There was a bug with rank 1 bacon, specifically. It will be fixed in Patch 7.1. (WarcraftDevs)

Any chance that Alchemists could see some love with a bottomless flask in 7.1? 500 Primary Stat?
Probably not in 7.1, but the idea isn't off the table for the future. (WarcraftDevs)

I am no herbalist, still i get herbalism world quests. Probably a bug?
This is intended, and will happen sometimes. Non-Herbalists can complete these quests using the Auction House, shoulder enchants, alts, etc. (WarcraftDevs)

Cooking, why do Legion Feasts take 300 stat food, to create a 200 stat feast? This devalues feasts incredibly
A few reasons, but the biggest is that single-use food gives secondary stats, while feasts give primary stats. (WarcraftDevs)