Patch 8.3 PTR - Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum Assaults Guide

[Stoy]

Patch 8.3 PTR - Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum Assaults Guide
Patch 8.3 adds assaults to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum. These new assaults work a little differently than what you would expect and are a very important part of keeping up with patch content. Here is what you need to know.

Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum Assault Basics

• First - Unlock the ability to do assaults by progressing your Black Empire Campaign Quest Chain
  
  • Unlocking Uldum Assaults
  • Unlocking Vale Assaults
• The N'Zoth eye in the corner of your map will direct you right to the map of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms or Uldum when clicked. Each of these zones can contain either a Black Empire Assault or a lesser Allies of N'Zoth Assault.
  
  • Black Empire Assaults
    
    • N'Zoth's minions are invading the zone with full force.
    • Weekly Duration - Alternates between each zone every week
    • Resets every Tuesday at reset
    • The entrance to the Ny'alotha raid will be wherever this invasion is occurring that week.
    • Completing this assault rewards you with 1500 reputation with The Uldum Accord (if assault is in Uldum) or the Rajani (if assault is in Vale of Eternal Blossoms), 750 Artifact Power, and a Cache of the Black Empire which contains:
      
      • 1x Vessel of Horrific Visions - used to enter Horrific Visions
      • 2000 gold
      • A generous amount of Corrupted Mementos
      • An item level 440 piece of gear, which can be corrupted
  • Allies of N'Zoth Assaults
    
    • These assaults are smaller and don't change the zone as drastically. Allies of N'Zoth attack other sections of the map on a smaller scale.
    • Vale of Eternal Blossoms - Mogu and Mantid Assaults
    • Uldum - Amathet and Aqir Assaults
    • Occur twice a week
    • Resets every Tuesday at reset and Friday at 7 pm PT
    • Whichever zone has an Allies of N'Zoth Assault will contain the weekly world boss.
      
      • Vale of Eternal Blossoms - Grand Empress Shek'zara
      • Uldum - Vuk'laz the Earthbreaker
    • Completing these assaults reward you with 500 reputation with The Uldum Accord (if assault is in Uldum) or the Rajani (if assault is in Vale of Eternal Blossoms), 750 Artifact Power, and a Cache of the Amathet / Cache of the Aqir Swarm / Cache of the Fallen Mogu / Cache of the Mantid Swarm (depending on which N'Zoth ally is invading) which contains:
      
      • 5500 Coalescing Visions - used to purchase Vessel of Horrific Visions to enter Horrific Visions
      • 2000 gold
      • A smaller amount of Corrupted Mementos
      • An item level 440 piece of gear, which can be corrupted

Why Are Assaults Important?

• Assaults will be your primary way to obtain Coalescing Visions, the main currency you need to purchase Vessel of Horrific Visions to enter Horrific Visions and upgrade your legendary cloak.
• Some activities also grant Corrupted Mementos, currency used to purchase not only new talents from your Archival Research Database to help with Horrific Visions, but also a mount, and Gouged Eye of N'Zoth to add sockets to gear.

Objectives

• Stage 1 - During an assault you will have to fill your standard percentage bar by doing tasks, all of which grant Coalescing Visions and possibly some Corrupted Mementos. These tasks include:
  
  • Killing Rares and mobs
  • Killing Corrupted rare mobs
  • Completing Bonus Objectives
  • Looting Chests
  • Interacting with clickable objects
• Stage 2 - Completing your percentage bar will then have you find and defeat an elite named commander in the zone. Once defeated, you return to the reputation hub of the zone to accept your rewards.
• Additional Tasks
  
  • Lesser Visions of N'Zoth
    
    • Displayed as an obelisk on your map
    • Have a sanity meter similar to Horrific Visions, but are just visions of the current zone being assaulted
    • Located in whichever area has the Black Empire Assault for the week
    • You may only enter one per day
    • These are also shared instances, meaning you see other characters in them regardless of if you are grouped or not.
    • Outside the Vision will be an NPC with a daily quest to complete an objective inside the Vision
      
      • The first time you complete this daily during the week you will receive 2000 Coalescing Visions and 20 Corrupted Mementos
      • The first time you complete the daily each week will also reward you with 1x Breath of Everlasting Spirit, of which you need 3 to get rank 2 of your Black Empire Campaign Essence seen below.
        
        • Breath of the Dying - Token of Death's Door (DPS)
        • Touch of the Everlasting - Focused Star Point (Healer)
        • Spirit of Preservation - Death-Resistant Leaf (Tank)
      • Completing it multiple times a week will reward 1000 Coalescing Visions and 8 Corrupted Mementos per day completed.
  • Reputation Dailies
    
    • Each of the new reputation factions will also have a set of daily quests found in their hubs.
    • Completing these dailies is your main source of rep for these new factions.
    • These dailies award Coalescing Visions
    • These particular dailies also have increased rewards if you have War Mode on.

Flying Dangers
Both zones also feature a new dangerous flying mob to watch out for. These unkillable Great Worms from Beyond fly high in the sky around the zone.

• When you get too close to them, you will start to receive a stacking debuff called Great Worm's Foul Stench which lasts 3 minutes and slows your flight speed by 30% per stack!
• If you get within melee range they will also insta-kill you.
• Immunities and death are the only way to remove the debuff outside of letting it expire.

Collectibles

• Mounts
  
  • Uldum
    
    • Reins of the Drake of the Four Winds - Drop from Ishak of the Four Winds.
    • Malevolent Drone - Drop from Corpse Eater during Aqir Assaults.
    • Waste Marauder - Drop from Rotfeaster during Amathet Assaults.
    • Shadowbarb Drone - Reward from Ready to Fly, the final quest in a chain started by doing dailies after finding a Voidtouched Egg during Aqir Assaults similar to raising Kua'fon.
  • Vale of Eternal Blossoms
    
    • Clutch of Ha-Li - Drop from Ha-Li during Mogu Assaults.
    • Ren's Stalwart Hound - Drop from Houndlord Ren during Mogu Assaults.
    • Xinlao - Drop from Anh-De the Loyal during Mogu Assaults.
    • Ivory Cloud Serpent - Drops from using the rare drop Zan-Tien Lasso on the rare mob Ivory Cloud Serpent during Mogu Assaults.
• Pets
  
  • Uldum
    
    • Black Chitinous Plate - Drops from Skik'traz during Aqir Assaults.
    • Bottle of Gloop - Fished up during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Oasis Void-Duster - Catchable in the wild during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Shadowbarb Hatchling - Earned while doing dailies to raise your Voidtouched egg found during Aqir Assaults.
    • Stinky Sack - Drops from Lord Aj'qirai during Aqir Assaults.
    • Void-Scarred Locust - Catchable in the wild during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Wicked Lurker - Drops from Amalgamation of Flesh during Black Empire Assaults.
  • Vale of Eternal Blossoms
    
    • Bottle of Gloop - Fished up during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Corrupted Tentacle - Drops from Will of N'Zoth during Black Empire Assaults.
    • K'uddly - Drops from The Forgotten during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Voidglower - Catchable in the wild during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Voidskimmer - Catchable in the wild during Black Empire Assaults.
• Toys
  
  • All-Seeing Eyes - Combine All-Seeing Left Eye dropped from Gaze of N'Zoth in Uldum and All-Seeing Right Eye dropped from Will of N'Zoth in Vale of Eternal Blossoms during Black Empire Assaults.
  • Uldum
    
    • Aqir Egg Cluster - Earned while doing dailies to raise your Voidtouched egg found during Aqir Assaults.
    • Budget K'thir Disguise - Drops from Yiphrim the Will Ravager during Black Empire Assaults.
    • Hell-Bent Bracers - Drops from The Grand Executor during Black Empire Assaults.
  • Vale of Eternal Blossoms
    
    • Trans-mogu-rifier - Drops from Tashara during Mogu Assaults.

Vale of Eternal Blossoms During Black Empire Assault

Uldum During Black Empire Assault

[Gloriandus]

The videos I've seen about this patch incessantly warn players about "falling behind". This might be the patch that makes me hang it up. It looks beyond tedious.

[Zyky]

The videos I've seen about this patch incessantly warn players about "falling behind". This might be the patch that makes me hang it up. It looks beyond tedious.

More than tedious, they were also exceptionally lazy with the development input, rehashing 2 zones for a huge old god raid. Among the lack of suitable catch up's for old content.

[Menolikeu]

More than tedious, they were also exceptionally lazy with the development input, rehashing 2 zones for a huge old god raid. Among the lack of suitable catch up's for old content.

....Read the lore behind all of this. Read the quests and such when it comes out. It makes perfect sense to use the two zones. They rehash sometimes because it fits the lore that they are using. The halls of origination in uldum makes perfect sense for the black empire to assault there as it holds the key to something that can defeat them. The vale is the same way....You can't just call someone lazy without knowledge of what they are doing or why. There is plenty of catchups as well, people are just lazy and can't take a few days to get honored with a faction....your main can get pearls/parts from naz/mech and give them to alts for rep. I have a monk that was 120 for 4 days, is honored with naz, almost done with the 3000 exp quest (will finish today). Neck is level 62, ilvl 430, it is NOT hard at all to get an alt caught up. 2-3 hours a day MAYBE to get them caught up to your main. Maybe not the raid essences but the rest is easy.

[Zyky]

....Read the lore behind all of this. Read the quests and such when it comes out. It makes perfect sense to use the two zones. They rehash sometimes because it fits the lore that they are using. The halls of origination in uldum makes perfect sense for the black empire to assault there as it holds the key to something that can defeat them. The vale is the same way....You can't just call someone lazy without knowledge of what they are doing or why. There is plenty of catchups as well, people are just lazy and can't take a few days to get honored with a faction....your main can get pearls/parts from naz/mech and give them to alts for rep. I have a monk that was 120 for 4 days, is honored with naz, almost done with the 3000 exp quest (will finish today). Neck is level 62, ilvl 430, it is NOT hard at all to get an alt caught up. 2-3 hours a day MAYBE to get them caught up to your main. Maybe not the raid essences but the rest is easy.

I'm aware of the lore, it was a very poor design choice to not have a full blown Old God zone, especially when this is the first one we're fighting at full strength.

[Jenram]

The corruption effects are beyond disappointing. Only 3 or 4 are really worth it from a DPS perspective, and one of them so drastically out-does the others that having one is worth more than having two of every other corruption effect. Considering the drawbacks to having too much corruption, the gains are very lacking unless you have one of the top 4 corruption effects. Balancing team flubbed up the corruption effects big time, considering the corruption system is supposed to be what replaces warforging/titanforging.

[wombinator04]

This patch is fucking shit. These invasions are boring and grindy, completely uninteresting. Legion invasions shit ALL OVER these.

[Dch48]

Patch is amazing so far. It will keep me occupied for quite a while. I love that.

[MuckDweller]

more garbage busy work content that only the mindless zombies can enjoy. absolutely ZERO creativity. pretty close to done with this boringass lame game

[Zorachus]

The new Assaults take FOREVER to complete. Killing one enemy only gives 1% to the assault, meaning I need to kill 100 enemies to complete it. Legion Assaults could be completed in a few minutes maybe 5 min tops, but these take like 20+ minutes, and super grind tedious work

[lintlicker]

waaaaaa. i don't know how to just have fun and play . i wanna go on forums and cry like a baby . blizzard didn't ask me what I wanted /boohoo

- - - Updated - - -

The new Assaults take FOREVER to complete. Killing one enemy only gives 1% to the assault, meaning I need to kill 100 enemies to complete it. Legion Assaults could be completed in a few minutes maybe 5 min tops, but these take like 20+ minutes, and super grind tedious work

learn how to play the game and this isn't an issue. there are OTHER things you can do / click on etc that are More than 1% I can "fill the bar" in 20 minutes. wow, that was hard. wow is too hard.