Patch 8.3 - Visions of N'Zoth Live This Week!

[Stoy]

Patch 8.3 - Visions of N'Zoth Live This Week!
Patch 8.3 - Visions of N'Zoth is live this week.

• Official Patch Notes
• Black Empire Campaign Quest Chain
• Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum Assaults Guide
• Horrific Visions Guide
• Corrupted Gear Guide
  
• Legendary Cloak Guide
• Heart of Azeroth Updates and New Essences
• New Allied Races - Mechagnomes and Vulpera
• Worgen and Goblin Heritage Armor
• New Reputation Factions
• New World Bosses
• Gouged Eye of N'Zoth - Add a Socket to Gear
• Bind-on-Account Item Level 410 Catch-Up Gear
• New Mounts
• New Auction House Interface and Updates
• New Pet Battle Dungeon - Blackrock Depths
• New Island Expedition Reward Vendor
• Legendary Transmog
• Mechagon and Nazjatar Essence Acquisition Nerf
• Titan Residuum Reset
• Allied Race and Pandaren Death Knights
• Mage Tower Guardian Druid Appearance Dance
• Coming Season 4 - January 21st, 2019
  
  • New Seasonal Mythic Plus Keystone Affix - Awakened
  • Heroic and Mythic Plus Mechagon
  • Heroic Battle for Darkshore Warfront
  • New Raid - Nyalotha, the Waking City
• New Icons

Official Patch Notes
Click the banner below to read the official patch notes for 8.3 - Visions of N'Zoth!

Black Empire Campaign Quest Chain
Upon logging in on patch day you will be able to start the new Black Empire Campaign quest chain. This is a rather lengthy chain that unlocks and introduces you to a lot of the new content in Patch 8.3. Click the banners below to see our preview of all parts of the chain.

Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum Assaults Guide
Patch 8.3 adds N'Zoth 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. Click the banner below for an in depth guide.

Horrific Visions Guide
Horrific Visions are one of the main new repeatable content added in Visions of N'Zoth. You will want to earn currency to enter these a few times a week as it is your main way to upgrade your legendary cloak and earn various rewards. Click the banner below for a full breakdown of what to expect.

Corrupted Gear Guide
Corrupted Gear is a new mechanic effectively taking the place of titanforging in Patch 8.3. Item drops in season 4 will no longer titanforge, but now have a chance to gain strong bonuses that also corrupt you and give debuffs if you wear too many of them at a time. Click the banner below for a complete guide on the system!

Legendary Cloak Guide
Wrathion returns in Visions of N'Zoth, and with him comes a brand new legendary cloak! Over the course of the patch, you will use horrific visions to upgrade your cloak, increasing its rank, item level, and giving it more and more ways to resist corruption! Click the banner below for a full preview of what to expect!

Heart of Azeroth Updates and New Essences
Patch 8.3 will once again let you collect Azerite Power to level your Heart of Azeroth past neck level 70 to a soft cap of 80. In addition, there are several new essences to collect! Click the banner below for more information and how to unlock each essence and their ranks.

New Allied Races - Mechagnomes and Vulpera
The Alliance will be able to recruit Mechagnomes as an allied race while Horde can bring the Vulpera in as their allied race. Click the banners below to see detailed overviews of each race and the quest chains to unlock them after meeting the requirements.

Worgen and Goblin Heritage Armor
Worgen and Goblin will be able to do a quest chain in 8.3 to unlock their very own heritage armor! You'll need to be Exalted with your respective faction and Level 120 to do so. Click the banners below for an in depth look at the heritage armor and the quest chain to unlock each.

New Reputation Factions
Patch 8.3 introduces The Uldum Accord and The Rajani reputation factions to gain reputation for and earn rewards. Click the banners below for a complete overview on each faction, rewards, and how to earn reputation with them.

New World Bosses
Patch 8.3 adds two world bosses to the rotation, each dropping baseline item level 445 loot. You will find Grand Empress Shek'zara as the weekly boss in The Vale of Eternal Blossoms while it is being assaulted by Allies of N'Zoth, and Vuk'laz the Earthbreaker in Uldum while it is being assaulted by Allies of N'Zoth. Click the banner below for their mechanics and loot tables!

Gouged Eye of N'Zoth - Add a Socket to Gear
Visions of N'Zoth adds an item, Gouged Eye of N'Zoth, that allows you to add a socket to a piece of gear, with some restrictions of course.

• You cannot purchase Gouged Eye of N'Zoth from Wrathion until you earn the We Have the Technology achievement for purchasing all talents in your Titanic Research Archive tree.
• Gouged Eye of N'Zoth costs 25000 Corrupted Memento each, which is not a small amount.
• Only season 4 gear can receive a socket, meaning you cannot add sockets to gear from previous raids.
• A piece of gear that already has a socket cannot gain a second one.
• You cannot add a socket to Heart of Azeroth, Azerite Armor, or Ashjra'kamas, Shroud of Resolve.

Level	Type	Name
120	Other	Gouged Eye of N'Zoth

Bind-on-Account Item Level 410 Catch-Up Gear
Item level 410 (415 for Azerite Armor) bind-on-account gear tokens will drop during assaults to help with catching up alts and gear levels. Click the banner below to learn more!

New Mounts
As with every patch, Visions of N'Zoth adds a bunch of new mounts to collect. Click the banner below to view each one and where to find them!

New Auction House Interface and Updates
Visions of N'Zoth is completely overhauling the auction house and its interface to make it faster, give it better performance, and to get rid of the multiple pages of annoying single-stack items. Click the banner below for an in depth look at the revamp.

Profession Updates and New Recipes
Professions haven't seen quite as many changes and additions as in patch 8.2, but there are some new gear recipes and things you should be aware of for patch 8.3.

• There are no new gathering materials this patch. You still utilize 8.2 materials.
• Tome of Unspeakable Delicacies drops from minions of N'Zoth in minor visions and teaches you several new food recipes that provide buffs while inside Horrific Visions.
• Recipe: Void Focus drops from minions of N'Zoth in minor visions and teaches you how to make a Void Focus. This functions as your anvil in 8.3 similar to the Abyssal Focus in 8.2.
  
  • To craft the Void Focus, you need to collect 10x Void Focus Splinter from any minions of N'Zoth inside and outside of visions. This will then give you a quest to set up the focus in the Chamber of Heart.
  • This initial focus can craft any of the new 440 gear that each crafting profession can craft. Similar to previous tiers, crafting a 440 will get you the 455 recipe and crafting that will get you the 470 recipe.
  • In order to upgrade the focus to craft the higher item level gear, you will receive quests to collect Shreds of Insanity.
    
    • These Shreds of Insanity not only drop from raid bosses, but also world bosses, by winning arena or battlegrounds, and even honorable kills.
  • Uncanny gear functions as the crafted BoE catch-up item level 400 gear this patch.

New Pet Battle Dungeon - Blackrock Depths
You will be able to dive into the Ring of Law in Blackrock Depths to take on a new pet battle dungeon and earn three new pets, achievements, and even two new toys, Shadowy Disguise and Mayhem Mind Melder! Click the banner below to learn more!

New Island Expedition Reward Vendor
A new vendor has appeared next to the Dubloon vendor in your capital city. They sell several crates for dubloons that contain random rewards from specific island mobs. Three crates will be up at a time and rotate. What is sold is random and is not dependent on this islands for the week.

• 175 Seafarer's Dubloon
  
  • Dread Chain Salvage - Salvaged goods from the northern island chain inhabited by Mogu, Kvaldir, Ice Trolls and wild Yeti.
  • Crestfall Salvage - Salvaged goods from the battlefield island now inhabited by Restless Orc Souls, Twilight Dragons and Pirates.
  • Snowbloosom Salvage - Salvaged goods from the Pandaren island inhabited by Mantid, Mogu and the pesky Virmen.
  • Skittering Hollow Salvage - Salvaged goods from this northern craggy island inhabited by Troggs, Kobolds and Nerubians.
  • Rotting Mire Salvage - Salvaged goods from this swampy island inhabited by Saurok, Jinju and an especially sorry lot of stranded pirates.
  • Jorundall Salvage - Salvaged goods from the northern island inhabited by Vrykul, Vargul Taunka and the elusive Storm Dragons.
  • Havenswood Salvage - Salvaged goods from the Gilnean island inhabited by Feral Worgen, Old God Minions and dark Necromancers.
• 120 Seafarer's Dubloon
  
  • Un'gol Ruins Salvage - Salvaged goods from the jungle island inhabited by Quilboar, Pygmy and Hozen.
  • Verdant Wilds Salvage - Salvaged goods from the druidic island inhabited by Furbolgs, Druids and Keepers.
  • Whispering Reef Salvage - Salvaged goods from the reef ringed island inhabited by Makrura, Murlocs and the Naga.
• 75 Seafarer's Dubloon
  
  • Elemental Salvage - Salvaged goods from across all islands containing the goods of the various elementals encounters.

Legendary Transmog
You will finally be able to transmog your legendary collection in Visions of N'Zoth! Time to collect your Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker if you haven't already!

Note - Arsenal: The Warglaives of Azzinoth (including the originals that warriors and rogues could equip) are not included in this change and are still only moggable by Demon Hunters who complete the special steps during Black Temple timewalking.

Deepwind Gorge Capture-Point Redesign
In Visions of N'Zoth, Deepwind Gorge has been redesigned to a capture-point map and most of the achievements have been moved to Legacy achievements, including Master of Deepwind Gorge, which rewards the Gorgeous title.

After the patch hits you won't be able to earn most of those achievements, however, you will still be able to earn the Gorgeous title as a new Master of Deepwind Gorge meta achievement will be added to the game.

New Brawl: Teeming Islands

This large-scale battle brings together two teams of 10 on an island overflowing with powerful creatures. This Brawl brings an additional challenge to the shores of PvP Island Expeditions by increasing the total amount of players from six to 20 on the biggest Islands (Havenswood and Jorundall).

When the Brawl is active, players can join the fight by opening up Group Finder (default hotkey: i), selecting it from the Player vs. Player tab, and queuing up.

Darkmoon Faire Arcade

Get your tokens ready. A new attraction built by the finest gnomish engineers is now ready for you to test your mettle—the Darkmoon Faire Arcade! Play games inspired by World Quests including HexSweeper, Barrels o’ Fun, Totemic Matrix, BULL-E, Remembery, and Rune Matching.

Be sure to look for this mechanic marvel run by Lynnish Hardmode when the Darkmoon Faire is in town, just behind the Darkmoon Faire Roller Coaster.

New Weapon Models
Patch 8.3 adds a bunch of new N'Zoth themed weapon models! Click the banner below to check them out!

Mechagon and Nazjatar Essence Acquisition Nerf

In Visions of N’Zoth, we’re making changes to the acquisition of Essences related to the Rise of Azshara zones. Our goal here is to lessen the effort needed to acquire Essences from Nazjatar and Mechagon for new and returning players as we want players to feel able to focus on content updated in Visions of N’Zoth.

• Reputation requirements for Nazjatar and Mechagon vendor-sold Essences have been reduced from Honored/Revered/Exalted for ranks 1/2/3 to Friendly/Honored/Revered.
  
  • Acquisition of Rank 4 of these Essences is unchanged.
• The follower experience requirements for Ranks 2 and 3 of Memory of Lucid Dreams have been reduced from 3000/6000 to 2400/4800.
• Players who are Revered with their respective Nazjatar reputation may now exchange Manapearls for Bind-to-Account reputation tokens.

We expect the addition of account-bound rep tokens for Nazjatar to complement the existing account-bound reputation token that is craftable in Mechagon, providing an option for players who have already unlocked the Rank 3 Essence on their main to speed up their progression towards it on their alts.

The changes above should become testable in a new update to the Visions of N’Zoth PTR in the next couple of weeks.

Titan Residuum Reset

When Season 4 starts, we’re planning to convert the Titan Residuum you currently have into silver. At the same time, we’ll set the drop rates of Titan Residuum and the prices of the items that it buys back to values that are understandable. After that reset, Titan Residuum will work in Season 4 just like it did in Seasons 2 and 3.

Allied Race and Pandaren Death Knights

In life you were a champion of your people. In death, you can rise once more to serve Azeroth as a Death Knight.

With the launch of Visions of N’Zoth, players who have pre-purchased World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be able to create pandaren and Allied Race Death Knights—including the newly available Vulpera and Mechagnomes once they’re unlocked.

TIP: Players who want to create Allied Race Death Knights will need to fulfill the requirements to unlock them before making a character. Requirements to unlock Allied Races can be found by hovering over the desired race icon on the character creation screen. Pandaren Death Knights have no restrictions and can be created immediately.

Pandaren and Allied Race Death Knights have a new starting experience and arise as champions of Lich King Bolvar at Icecrown amongst their spectral peers. After completing an introductory questline with Bolvar, they will begin their journey as heroes of Azeroth and join forces with either the Horde or the Alliance. Death Knights for previously available races will still begin their new lives in Archerus the Ebon Hold as summoned servants of Lich King Arthas.

Ascend as a Death Knight with full honors from The Four Horsemen of the Ebon Blade and Bolvar at Icecrown Citadel.

All new Death Knight characters will receive the iconic Archerus Deathcharger class mount after completing the introductory questline, with Allied Race Death Knights also receiving their racial mount (pandaren racial mounts will still need to be purchased from a vendor). Heritage Armor for Allied Races characters can be obtained by leveling to 110.

Windows to the Soul
All Death Knights new and old will receive an updated appearance. Inspired by the notorious Lich King Arthas, their eyes now sport a dynamic eerie glow that captures the ghastly chill of Northrend.

See Azeroth and beyond through frosted lenses.

Serve Life in Death
Many will fear you after your dark rebirth, but your sacrifice is a necessity to confront the new horrors that will be unleashed once the Visions of N’Zoth content update goes live next week on January 14.

Updated Male Worgen Eyes
Male Worgen eyes have received some shine! The shimmer is more noticeable on the eyes that don't glow.

Mage Tower Guardian Druid Appearance Dance
The "werebear" skin from completing the legion Mage Tower Challenge has received a dance animation!

Season 4 Additions - January 21st, 2019
A new season brings an increase in item levels rewards across the board, plus some other new things!

New Seasonal Mythic Plus Keystone Affix - Awakened
Patch 8.3 comes with a new seasonal mythic plus affix to replace Beguiling called Awakened. Click the banner below for a full rundown of the affix.

Heroic and Mythic Plus Mechagon
The mythic only mega-dungeon Operation: Mechagon has been split into two parts and given a heroic difficulty. When season 4 starts, these two parts will also start appearing on keys for mythic plus.

It is likely that the Mechagon Peacekeeper mount will still only have a chance to drop from mythic HK-8 Aerial Opression Unit or at the end chest in a Operation Mechagon: Junkyard mythic plus run. Aerial Unit R-21/X is still an reward from completing a hard mode run on mythic difficulty.

• Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
  
  • Gunker
  • Trixie Tazer & Naeno Megacrash
  • King Gobbamak
  • HK-8 Aerial Opression Unit
• Operation: Mechagon - Workshop
  
  • Tussle Tonks
  • K.U.J.O.
  • Machinist's Garden
  • King Mechagon

Heroic Battle for Darkshore Warfront
Just like the Heroic Battle for Stromgarde Warfront added in Patch 8.2, Visions of N'Zoth will allow you to que up with 10 to 20 people for the Heroic Battle for Darkshore Warfront. Heroic versions of warfronts provide higher quality rewards (1x item level 460 piece for the quest) but also an increased difficulty. Click the banner below for more information on the Battle for Darkshore Warfront!

New Raid - Nyalotha, the Waking City
On January 21st, you will be able to enter the new Ny'alotha, the Waking City raid to encounter 12 new bosses on normal and heroic. Mythic and Raid Finder Wing 1 unlock the week after on January 28th. Click the banner below for an encounter preview and expect raid guides up soon!

New Icons
As always, a new patch brings a ton of new icons!

[Super Kami Dende]

I look forward to getting stuck into this patch. Looks solid as fuck.

[Fawkess]

One thing I'm excited for is those damn island box's

PTR testers have said mounts have a good drop rate so I'll finally be able to get my Risen Mare and Twilight Avenger

[Lora]

warfronts can go to 30 people.

[Flamez2]

That new race looks like something designed for kids!

Everything else looks great

[MiiiMiii]

So I will spend some time getting the new Allied Races unlocked, even though I will never play them.

After that, I will probably do the quest for legendary cloak and some Legion Invasion recycled content for some catch up gear and this new currency.

After that, I will do this new corrupted dungeon for a coupple of weeks and notice it's just smarter to wait for catch up legendary cloak talents to beat it easily.

I will obviously not bother getting good gear in PvP nor PvE. I will probably do the new raids once in LFR and be like "well that was boring, guess I never will do this again". See you all in next catch up mechanic - the next expansion.

I will then go back to playing Classic and retry in Shadowlands for another disapointment.

[Gadzooks]

Looks solid, on the surface, even though it's all raid stuff. But the real question is - is it enough to keep players in the game until Shadowlands? I took a break from paying attention to WOW, but I'm curious how this year will play out, retention-wise. I feel like there's more hype for the next phases for Classic, 8.3 is less hyped than The Rise Of Skywalker.

[Autowand]

Super excited about the AH and mailbox changes. The mailbox change will certainly help with posting my 2400 items every day, might even cut my time in half!

[kornek21]

do i need to be exalted with rustbolt on an alliance player or can i be exalted with them on a horde player to unlock the mechagnomes?

[Donald Hellscream]

do i need to be exalted with rustbolt on an alliance player or can i be exalted with them on a horde player to unlock the mechagnomes?

You should be able to, you need a 120 alliance character to do the questline of course.

[kornek21]

You should be able to, you need a 120 alliance character to do the questline of course.

i have 2 alliance at 120 so no problem there, just that i really cba to grind to exalted again on alliance when im exalted on a horde character lol.

[Donald Hellscream]

i have 2 alliance at 120 so no problem there, just that i really cba to grind to exalted again on alliance when im exalted on a horde character lol.

It worked that way with the nightborne, void elves, etc. I think it just checks for the achievement on your account and not the actual rep on the character.

[Devilyaki]

Finally something for me to do :3

[kornek21]

It worked that way with the nightborne, void elves, etc. I think it just checks for the achievement on your account and not the actual rep on the character.

hopefully your right lol

[Donald Hellscream]

I wish I had paid more attention.. I came back way behind on the essence grind and realized I needed 13 galvanic oscillators and 37 crates of spare parts and so I went and bought all the Junkyard drops for the repeatable quest.. Only then to realize that they effectively halved the amount of stuff needed.. So now I have 5 more oscillators than I need and way too few crates since I spent parts on crafting the oscillators.. Oh well atleast spare parts are plentiful so I hopefully won't have to grind any Mechagon in 8.3.

[Stoy]

do i need to be exalted with rustbolt on an alliance player or can i be exalted with them on a horde player to unlock the mechagnomes?

Blizzard confirmed in a tweet that Horde characters exalted with the Rustbolt Resistance can still unlock mechagnomes on an Alliance toon without regrinding the rep!

[glowpipe]

Note - Arsenal: The Warglaives of Azzinoth (including the originals that warriors and rogues could equip) are not included in this change and are still only moggable by Demon Hunters who complete the special steps during Black Temple timewalking.

the most disgusting shit blizzard has ever done. Warriors and rogues had those weapons in their inventories before demon hunters were even a thought as a new class. They aren't even glaives, they are swords and they act like swords. Fix your shit blizzard
And before you call me salty cause i can't use them, i don't even have them

[reacher]

In before the whining that this patch is empty

[Kyphael]

Blizz: Here's a 3 minute explanation about how Visions of N'zoth will work.

Me: Just going to wait for the N'zoth LFR wing, beat it in one night and go back to leveling my DK Mechagnome and Vulpera.

[TheFirstOnes]

Horde: *Gets Vulpera*

Players: I'm about to do what's called a pro faction change move.