World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Within war-torn Maldraxxus, might—of all kinds—makes right. Here, in the birthplace of necromantic magic, those who master the powers of death turn legions of ambitious souls into relentless immortal armies.


Welcome to Maldraxxus

Chaos has erupted in the Shadowlands. In the midst of fighting the Forsworn, the kyrian were ambushed by the very forces charged with defending the infinite realms of the Shadowlands: the militant Maldraxxi. The Archon of the Kyrian Covenant has sent you on a special mission to Maldraxxus to discover who ordered the attack—and demand answers.

It quickly becomes apparent that not all is well with the Necrolords. Two of the five ruling houses lie in ruins, and their collective leader, the Primus, is nowhere to be found. With order in freefall, the remaining three houses ruthlessly fight and sabotage one another by any means necessary to claim the Seat of the Primus—for whoever holds this ancient fortress commands the armies of the Shadowlands.

The Primus was a master strategist and tactician, nigh unbeatable on the field of battle. Long absent from his impenetrable sanctum, he left behind cryptic messages and prophecies pointing to the coming of one who could embody the might of Maldraxxus and save the realm from itself.


Maldraxxus’ Inhabitants

Meet the denizens of Maldraxxus.



Abominations
The corpses of the slain are brought to the House of Constructs, where the finest pieces of flesh and bone are skillfully assembled into a new form. These reanimated monstrosities are given new purpose in a body that is greater than the sum of its once separate parts.



Gladiators
The most powerful warriors and champions become gladiators within the ranks of the House of the Chosen. These peerless battlefield tacticians tirelessly train with a variety of rune-forged weapons and are unmatched in martial combat.



Liches
Practicing their craft in the House of Rituals, liches are scheming skeletal sorcerers who use anima to fuel their potent magic.



Plague House Remnant
After the destruction of the House of Plagues, some of the most wretched experiments congealed into animated creatures that now mindlessly wander the plains and crags of Maldraxxus.



Soul-Rotted Flesh
Should outsiders be foolish enough to invade Maldraxxus, they will find themselves cowering in fear before these behemoths. Amalgamations of countless fallen warriors, these monolithic guardians make the earth beneath them tremble with every step they take during their patrols.



Aranakk
Once master assassins and scouts of the fallen House of Eyes, aranakk now find themselves bannerless nomads. While their necropolis lies in ruins, they still retain their sense of purpose and are willing to share the secrets they’ve unraveled from the tangled webs of truth—for a price.

These are but a few of the entities you’ll encounter in Maldraxxus. While adventuring, it's best to stay vigilant—you might even cross paths with long-passed heroes of Azeroth who now wander this realm.

Necrolord Covenant

When players reach maximum level and have explored the first four zones, they’ll be able to pledge themselves to a Covenant, like the Necrolords. Each Covenant offers its champions abilities, along with other powers and cosmetic rewards that can be unlocked through a Covenant Campaign—an epic storyline unique to the faction. This alliance also gives the player access to a Covenant Sanctum, a hall only open to players who have forged a pact with its rulers.

Power of the Necrolords

If you choose to join the Necrolord Covenant, you’ll gain two unique abilities—one class ability used in combat, as well as a signature ability that all members of the Covenant share.

Here is the signature ability that the Necrolords bestow upon their champions:

Fleshcraft: Form a shield of flesh and bone that prevents damage equal to a portion of your maximum health. Standing near the corpse of a defeated enemy when the ability is cast will create a larger shield.

To give you an idea of what to expect, you can view a list of the Covenant signature and class abilities. Please keep in mind that all these are a work in progress and may have additional changes during the course of development and testing, so all abilities shown are subject to change.

Soulbinding
When you join a Covenant, you’ll be able to undergo an ancient rite to bind your soul to some of its most powerful members. By doing so, your character harnesses their power, gaining access to powerful bonuses. Over time, you can unlock new tiers of power and even switch Soulbinds when strategy demands it.

Necrolord Covenant Spoils
For your contributions to the Necrolord Covenant’s cause, you’ll be rewarded with several cosmetic rewards including: a mount, a pet, Necrolord-forged armor, and back attachments that will make your comrades respect you as part of their ranks.

Armor Up
Don specially crafted armor forged within the fires of Maldraxxus.


Plaguefall Dungeon and Story Spoilers Inside!


Plaguefall

The House of Plagues was once part of the immortal armies of Maldraxxus, unleashing devasting blight and suffering upon the enemies of the Shadowlands. In the aftermath of the house's not-so-accidental demise, outside forces scramble to claim its toxic secrets. . . before they find themselves consumed by them.

Difficulties: Normal, Heroic, Mythic

Level: 50+ (One of four level-up dungeons*)

Globgrog
The exact nature of the plagues and oozes disgorged by the fall of the House of Plagues may never be deciphered, but the collection of slimes and flesh that became Globgrob will guard this treasure fanatically.

Doctor Ickus
The destruction of the House of Plagues and the slime eruptions left in its wake will not stop the presumed genius of Doctor Ickus and his deranged experiments.

Domina Venomblade
Domina Venomblade believes the instrument of her revenge for the fall of the House of Eyes rests with Plaguefall. No one, not even her former allies, will keep her from gaining the weapon hidden in these ruins.

*Plaguefall is a 5-player dungeon in Maldraxxus.


We look forward to sharing more information as development continues, and we hope this preview prepares you for Maldraxxus and perhaps selecting the Necrolord Covenant!

Will you be joining the Necrolord Covenant? Join the discussion on the forums.

Rewards and abilities are still in development and subject to change, so be sure check back for periodic updates on worldofwarcraft.com as we approach the release of Shadowlands.

In an upcoming build of Shadowlands, several changes have been made for both of the DPS Shaman specializations.

One quick note before discussing the specific changes to each spec, Searing Totem is being removed as a baseline button to all Shaman. Searing Totem was brought back in Shadowlands with the intention of Totems being a cool and iconic part of the Shaman class, but without significant redesign to the button to give it mechanical interaction and feeling impactful to press, it wound up feeling like just another cooldown you had to manage that didn’t have any excitement behind it.

Elemental Shaman:

• Fulmination has been changed to be a guaranteed proc from Lightning Bolt and Lightning Bolt Overload.
• Chain Lightning has been decoupled from Fulmination entirely, but still grants Seismic Thunder stacks.
• Earthquake’s base damage has been reduced significantly, but Seismic Thunder now also increases the damage of Earthquake for each stack of Seismic Thunder consumed when cast.
• Fire Elemental’s previous interaction with bonus Fulmination proc chance has been redesigned. While Fire Elemental is active, the period of Flame Shock is reduced, which increases the DPS of any active Flame Shock debuff and also increases the chance of gaining the Lava Surge effect. Additionally while Fire Elemental is active, any newly cast Flame Shock will have its Duration increased by 100%.
• Lightning Shield will now grant the Shaman a charge of Fulmination when it deals damage to an enemy.
• Echo of the Elements no longer grants a second charge of Healing Stream Totem for Elemental Shaman. This is more of a bug fix, but noting here as it is a moderate change to available utility of the Echo of the Elements talent. This talent is unchanged for Restoration.

The changes above should make Elemental Shaman feel quite a bit more control over what will happen as the result of pressing their abilities.

Enhancement Shaman Core Ability Changes:

• Rockbiter has been removed from the spec.
  ** This is a big change we’re trying out. Rockbiter in Shadowlands basically only serves as a GCD filler. With the removal of Maelstrom, and Flame Shock and Frost Shock becoming class-wide abilities that are also on a short cooldown to fill empty spots, there was a lot of competition in the ~6 sec cooldown space of available buttons. Without Maelstrom, Rockbiter didn’t have any strong interaction with the rest of the Enhancement toolkit, and shock spells are much more iconic to Shaman. This is an experimental change, please try things out in combination with the changes below and let us know how things feel.
• Lava Lash is now learned at level 11, down from level 22. Base cooldown increased to 18 sec (was 12 sec)
• Lava Lash now gets upgraded at level 22 to have its cooldown reduced to 12 sec (was 18 sec)
• Stormstrike’s cooldown has been reduced to 7.5 sec (was 9 sec)
• Maximum Maelstrom Weapon stacks have been increased from 5 to 10.
• Each stack of Maelstrom Weapon now grants increased damage and/or healing to the abilities Maelstrom Weapon effects in addition to the cast time reduction.
• Abilities that are altered by Maelstrom Weapon have had their baseline damage or healing values reduced.
• Stormbringer no longer causes your next Stormstrike to not incur a cooldown.
• Feral Spirits now grants one stack of Maelstrom Weapon immediately when pressed, and an additional 5 stacks over the duration of Feral Spirits.
• Each target that you hit with Chain Lightning now both increases the damage of, and reduces the cooldown of your next Crash Lightning.
• Windfury Totem radius increased from 12 to 30 yards.
• Windfury Weapon and Flametongue Weapon no longer require you to click the button, then click a weapon on your character sheet. They automatically apply their effects to an appropriate equipped weapon.
• Lightning Shield now has a 50% chance to grant you a stack of Maelstrom Weapon when it deals damage to an enemy.
• Flame Shock and Frost Shock have their cooldowns shortened with your current Haste.

Enhancement Shaman Talent Changes:

• Boulderfist (talent) has been redesigned and renamed to Lashing Flames (Passive). Lava Lash now increases the damage of your Flame Shock on the target by 100% for 12 sec.
• Landslide (talent) has been redesigned and renamed to Stormfury (Passive). Each time Windfury Weapon activates, the cooldown of Stormstrike is reduced by 1 sec.
• Hailstorm (talent) renamed to Cycle of the Elements.
• Searing Assault (talent) redesigned and renamed to Hailstorm (Passive). Each Stack of Maelstrom Weapon consumed increases the damage of your next Frost Shock by 50%, and causes your next Frost Shock to hit 1 additional target per stack of Maelstrom Weapon consumed. Maximum 5 stacks.
• Overcharge (talent) redesigned and renamed to Fire Nova. 15 sec cooldown. Cause all of your Flame Shocks to erupt in flames, dealing Fire Damage to up to 6 targets near your Flame Shock Targets.

The above changes to Enhancement Shaman are a lot to take in, but we feel that the combined list of changes will make your abilities feel like they have a purpose and interact with your toolkit in meaningful ways instead of just dealing damage.

Hello!

Death Knight will see a couple of abilities tweaked in this Alpha update, based on feedback received. We think these should help their usability going forward. Thank you very much for your continued feedback.

Blood

• Rune Tap global cooldown removed.
  
  • Developers’ notes: Rune Tap was made baseline in Shadowlands, but also had a GCD added, which was not present in Battle for Azeroth. We’re reverting this change to bring it back to its current functionality.

Unholy

• Outbreak duration of Virulent Plague increased to 28 seconds (was 21 seconds).
• Outbreak AoE range increased to 10 (was 8).
  
  • Developers’ notes: We changed how Virulent Plague functions in Shadowlands. To compensate for the loss of uptime of Virulent Plague, we’ve increased its duration and increased the initial AoE application, so it doesn’t require such tight grouping to maximize the targets hit.

Hello!

Thank you for all of your continued feedback on Mage changes in Shadowlands. Below, you’ll find the latest changes in the Alpha, which includes reverting Shimmer to 2 charges, further talent tuning, and the removal of the short lived Frost and Fire Ward.

There has a been a lot of great discussion in this thread and we hope to see it continue!

Mage

• Shimmer charge count increased to 2.
• Shimmer cooldown Increased to 25 seconds (was 20 seconds).
  
  • Developers’ notes: After listening to feedback and more playtesting, we are returning both charges of Shimmer at a slightly higher cooldown cost. Our goal with the change was to bring more it inline with the other talents on the row, but in doing so, Shimmer lost a lot of its identity. If the other talents on the tier continue to underperform, we’ll look at ways we can enhance them to be more attractive options while up against Shimmer.
• Focus Magic now also grants the caster 1% Intellect, stacking up to 8 times when their Focus Magic target critically strikes.
  
  • Developers’ notes: We’d like for Focus Magic to reward the caster a bit more for taking an ally friendly talent.
• Frost and Fire Ward removed from all specs.
  
  • Developers’ notes: Compared to some of the other abilities, these two landed a little flat and overlapped a bit too much with each of the Barriers.

Fire Specialization

• Alexstrasza’s Fury now also makes your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike deal 35% increased damage.
  
  • Developers’ notes: We’re looking to make this more competitive with the Flame On and the future Phoenix Flames replacement.

Hello!

In this build of the Shadowlands Alpha, we’ve made some changes to Affliction Warlocks, based on your feedback. We want to address concerns with pet summoning, Curse of Doom, and Affliction’s single target rotation, among other things.

Thank you for all your posts!

Warlock

• Fel Domination is now a baseline ability, learned at level 34, with a 3 minute cooldown. Fel Domination reduces summoning cast time by 5.5 seconds.
  
  • Summoning your pet shouldn’t be always easy, but sometimes you need a new pet in a pinch.
• Curse of Doom removed for Affliction and Destruction.
• Curse of Exhaustion is learned at level 58 for all three specializations.
• Curse of Exhaustion slows the target by 50% for 8 seconds.
  
  • Developers’ notes: We love Curse of Doom, but it wasn’t working out well at a 60-second period. Also, we feel that Curse of Exhaustion will provide interesting choices when deciding which Curse to use.

Affliction

• Shadow Embrace is now baseline as a part of Shadow Bolt (Rank 2), learned at level 52 for Affliction.
  
  • Developers’ notes: Shadow Bolt for Affliction was falling by the wayside in the rotation. This should encourage Warlocks to use it more often, and provide more gameplay while fighting a single target.
• Unstable Affliction no longer has a limit of 1, and no longer amplifies damage on your target.
• Unstable Affliction’s damage backlash on dispel increased substantially.
• At level 56, Unstable Affliction is ranked up to gain an additional 5 seconds of duration.
  
  • Developers’ notes: This is a more of an experimental change than the rest, but we feel that Unstable Affliction is not meeting player expectations at a limit of 1. This change allows Affliction to focus more on spreading dots to many targets at once.
• Corruption now ranks up at level 54 to gain an initial period, dealing .12 coefficient damage instantly.

Talents

• Writhe in Agony now also causes Agony to start at 4 stacks, in addition to increasing its maximum stacks to 18.
• New Talent: Inevitable Demise. Damaging an enemy with Agony increases the damage of your next Drain Life by 5%. This effect stacks up to 50 times.
• Nightfall now activates slightly more often as Corruption spreads to more targets.
  
  • Developers’ notes: Previously, Nightfall was not occurring more often as you spread Corruption to multiple targets. This felt counter-intuitive, so we added functionality to increase its rate with multiple Corruptions. Similar to Agony, its increase is not linear, but you will see more Nightfalls multi-target.
• Deathbolt is now a PvP talent.
  
  • Developers’ notes: With Unstable Affliction stacking gone, the instant burst single target damage from this felt more appropriate as a PvP talent, to act as a finisher.
• Tongue Tied Removed. Replaced with–
• Howl of Terror: Fears 5 targets within 10 yards for 20 seconds. Has a 1.5 second cast time and 40 second cooldown.
• New talent: Dark Caller (in place of Shadow Embrace). Reduces the cooldown of Summon Darkglare by 1 minute.
  
  • Developers’ notes: This talent should allow Warlocks to specialize further into keeping lots of dots on many targets at once, and give them more room to use Malefic Rapture in that window.

PvP Talents

• Soulshatter removes all active Corruptions, dealing 10% of their maximum HP and grants 10% Haste, stacking 5 times. Lasts 15 seconds, and is magic dispellable.
  
  • Developers’ notes: This talent was very under-utilized due to the heavy cost of removing all dots, so it now removes Corruption instead, and no longer generates soul shards.
• Deathbolt now deals 60% damage equal to remaining duration of your dots, has a 0.5 second cast time, and a 45 second cooldown. Deathbolt missile is slower and more apparent.
• Amplify Curse now affects Curse of Exhaustion, causing it to slow the target by 70%.

Demonology

Talents

• Curse of Doom reverted to Doom, with damage increased.

Classes

• Monk
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Chrysalis (PvP Talent) now reduces the cooldown of Life Cocoon by 25 seconds (was 45 seconds).
      

Dungeons and Raids

• Skyreach
  
  • Araknath
    
    • Energize damage has been reduced by 50% on Heroic and Timewalking difficulties.
      

Horrific Visions

• Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar
  
  • Thrall's throne has been blocked off to prevent a rare occurrence where characters could become stuck if feared into the throne.
    

Items and Rewards

• Azerite Essences
  
  • Conflict and Strife (Major – Rank 2) now increases the defensive benefit of your Versatility by 50% while stunned (was 100%).
    

Player versus Player

• Items and Rewards
  
  • Corrupted Gladiator's Spite can once again stack more quickly when multiple Corrupted Gladiator's Spite trinkets are used against a target.
    
  • Azerite Essences
    
    • Reaping Flames (Major – Rank 3) no longer activates on player-controlled targets such as pets, totems, or guardians.
      
    • Resolved an issue that prevented Conflict and Strife (Major – Rank 2) effect from providing additional defensive benefit from Versatility under the effects of certain class stuns.
      
  • Corrupted Items
    
    • The effectiveness of Versatile (Corruption Effect) has been reduced by 33% when engaged in combat with enemy players.
      

Quests

• Fixed several quests that could be unintentionally shared and trigger a teleport upon accepting.

Timewalking

• We have reduced the magnitude of the stat adjustment applied to players to compensate for their Corruption level.
  
  • Developers' note: Timewalking is designed to largely be a gear-agnostic experience that allows players of different levels and stages of progression to group together. Since Legion, we've used stat adjustments to offset the unique power benefits from systems like Artifacts or Essences to try to keep power constant. We were being too aggressive in compensating for Corruption, and this was making Timewalking dungeons in Visions of N'Zoth more difficult than intended.
    
• Auchindoun
  
  • Teron'gor
    
    • Agony should now inflict the appropriate amount of damage as it increases over time.
      
    • The Seed of Malevolence explosion should now inflict damage to all players near the affected target.
      

WoW Classic

• Fixed an issue that would cause a Dragon of Nightmare to spawn again shortly after its death.

Choosing Your Corruption

In addition to any unlocked Essences, MOTHER will now also offer several new Preserved Contaminants, which allow for a specific Corruption effect (and the associated Corruption penalty) to be applied to a selected item. The inventory of available Preserved Contaminants will change twice each week, mirroring the Assault cadence, and will cycle through all available Corruption effects at various levels of potency.

You can use a Preserved Contaminant to apply the Corruption you purchased to any uncorrupted item that can be Corrupted, much like an enchant.