In Patch 9.2 you will have to earn flying again to fly in the new zone of Zereth Mortis. I’ve made a video guide that explains all the things you need to do. Almost everything can be done on the first day of the patch!
When patch 9.2 releases Tazavesh will become available in both heroic and Mythic+. It’s been split up into 2 wings for those difficulties, so I’ve made two videos for the individual wings of the instance to remind you what the boss mechanics were. You can view them below!
Quote from: Blizzard
The fight against the Jailer and his forces continues in this last chapter of the ongoing saga. Prepare to face Zovaal before he rewrites the very rules of reality. Step into a strange new land—Zereth Mortis—an otherworldly location that defies all concepts of reality or physics. Meet new allies, delve into a new and lyrical language, and engage in the campaign to push back against the Jailer and his malevolent will before he reaches his end goal.
Check out the latest Survival Guide for a peek at some of the new content, features, and changes coming with Eternity’s End—the final act in the Shadowlands saga. We’ll offer a deeper look into a whole new zone, an exciting new raid, the return of Class sets, and much more!
Journey Through the Gates of Zereth Mortis
With the aid of the Primus, you and your allies will establish a path to Zereth Mortis. The fate of the Shadowlands and all the realms beyond is at stake. [LEARN MORE]
Eternity’s End Raid Preview
Pursue Zovaal’s forces into the Sepulcher of the First Ones as he prepares to dominate reality for this epic Shadowlands raid. [LEARN MORE]
Defy the Odds in Torghast
The ever-changing halls of Torghast, Tower of the Damned reveal new Layers and challenges. Overcome increasingly complex challenges in Eternity’s End. [LEARN MORE]
Synthesize A Menagerie of Battle Pets and Mounts
Protoform Synthesis is a new crafting feature that allows you to create Zereth Mortis-themed mounts and pets to expand your collection. [LEARN MORE]
Eternity’s End Content Update Notes
Read about the changes and new additions for the Content Update in our notes. [LEARN MORE]
New PvP Brawl: Solo Shuffle
The Solo Shuffle brawl pits six players (two healers, four damage dealers) against each other in exciting 3v3 Arena matches. As the name implies, you can only queue for this brawl solo. Play a series of short matches as teams are shuffled and earn rewards based on your performance. Queue for Solo Shuffle beginning 2 March, and unlike other Brawls, Solo Shuffle will be permanently available and not on a rotating schedule.
Shadowlands Season 3
Lots of updates are coming to Mythic+ in Shadowlands when Season 3 arrives on March 1, including a brand-new Affix called Encrypted, and the Wastewarped Deathwalker mount for those able to earn the Season 3 Keystone Master achievement. And in PvP, you’ll be able to earn the Vicious Warstalker, Vicious War Croaker, and Cosmic Gladiator’s Soul Eater.
A new arena beckons would-be champions to test their mettle! For eons, the Necrolords of Maldraxxus honed their craft at the Maldraxxus Coliseum. Now the Arena is open to any challengers.
Also, Tazavesh, The Veiled Market Heroic Difficulty will be available in Season 3. Gather your party and discover exotic wares and strange creatures as you face off against dastardly assassins, four-armed broker guards, an infinite pirate dragon, and other enemies.
Progenitor Tier Set
Earn the new Progenitor Tier Set with two set bonuses to grant your character new abilities based on your specialization. This set includes five pieces—a helm, shoulders, chest piece, gauntlets, and leggings. The first set bonus is unlocked when two set pieces are equipped, and the second bonus is unlocked when four set pieces are equipped. Build your set by defeating bosses in the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, through all Great Vault activities, or other methods.
The dev Q&A just concluded, here’s our summary of all new information that was given during the session:
Allied Races
- Kul Tiran and Zandalari allied races are coming out with 8.1.5 because of story reasons but also because of practical reasons. Originally Kul Tirans weren’t planned as an allied race because they weren’t sure if they would be able to do so. Kul Tirans have been built from the ground up. Creating the Kul Tiran race took just as much effort as all the other allied races combined.
PvP
- The Alliance currently get the ilvl 400 item from the weekly pvp quest for war mode promotion. They do not believe it will stay Alliance only as more and more Alliance players are also opting in to War Mode. The quest helps as an incentive to get people into war mode. However, they do think ilvl 400 might be too high. Next week they might be changing it to ilvl 385 and instead add another reward such as conquest points.
- Regarding PvP vendors – The new system is an attempt to improve on what vendors gave in PvP. In season 2 players have the choice to pick which armor with stats they want. An example was given of azerite gear. When you earn a pvp chest in season 2 you get to choose the chest out of multiple options. They would like to hear: What choices do you feel you are missing in PvP?
Technical Concerns
- Server stability is top priority for the team. Unfortunately for an issue like this the solution isn’t just 1 fix, it requires multiple fixes. In the future they’d like to bring out a devcooler explaining some of the things they have already encountered and fixed and what they are still working on.
- They’re going to see if they can raise the character cap on a realm to the account cap of 50 characters.
Quality of Life Improvements
- In 8.1.5 we’ll be able to transfer war resources from our main characters to alts.
Gear
- The 30 item levels increase is the smallest number of increase they’ve used for a long time. They have this number so it still feels like you’re becoming more powerful from new content loot while minimizing the inflation it brings to character stats.
- The changes to the Azerite system are still fully being discussed, so things can change. However for patch 8.2… The bigger picture thinking that they’re looking at is as follows: They want to move away from unlocking the same traits every time you get a new piece. Instead you’ll earn more powers like legion artifacts had as your Heart of Azeroth levels up.
- Regarding the funneling of Titan Residuum, they’re not likely to add more restrictions if it would hurt the majority of players. Nothing is further planned beyond the hotfix that was released recently.
Mythic+
- They’re going to talk with the team about the rewards that come from mythic+.
- Instead of removing the uniqueness that a class adds to mythic+, such as shroud from rogues, they would rather have other classes add other benefits you would want in your group.
- It’s not likely they’ll add a punishment for leaving a mythic+ run halfway through the dungeon, the punishment is a social one. They won’t be invited back. A system they’d create would likely create more problems.
Game Design
- What are the biggest design challenges the dev team has? Resolving short term vs long term, resolving casual vs hardcore, there are many different types of players that enjoy different aspects of it and have different concerns. The challenge is to offer fun gameplay to all those types of players.
- The team is not done with looking at the GCD (Global Cooldown) changes. A lot of the cooldowns are unsatisfying to press. They’re looking at adding an active component to some cooldowns. Such as Ascendance for resto shamans, when you press it you might emit a burst of healing to make it feel more satisfying.
- There are no major class changes coming in 8.1.5. Complete class overhauls that include rotation changes are more likely to happen in a new expansion. People also have different definitions for “major changes” and miscommunication on that has occurred in the past for classes such as shamans.
As season 2 is now in full swing in all regions hotfixes have started to make their way to the live servers:
Quote from: Blizzard
January 23, 2019
Dungeons and Raids
Battle of Dazar’alor
- The achievement Can I Get a Hek Hek Hek Yeah? now requires all members of the raid click on the Mysterious Trashpile before the fight starts to receive Jani’s Favor, and then complete the existing criteria for the achievement.
- Fixed a bug that prevented some players from receiving the achievement The Hidden Dragon on Normal difficulty.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Arcane Torrent to remain available when changing factions.
Items
- Emissary armor, weapon caches, and rewards from faction assaults now reward the item by loot specialization. These were previously rewarded by class.
Player versus Player
- Sinister Gladiator’s Safeguard’s shield now has a duration of 6 seconds (was 10 seconds), and can now be dispelled.
- Dread/Sinister Gladiator’s Emblem now has a duration of 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).
- Sinister Gladiator Maledict’s heal absorption can now be dispelled.
- Xalziax’s Veiled Eye’s shield can now be dispelled.
- Developers’ note: With the start of Battle for Azeroth Season 2, we introduced two new trinkets that are acquired via PvP, Sinister Gladiator’s Maledict and Sinister Gladiator’s Safeguard. In agreement with feedback we’ve been receiving, we’ve made a few changes to these items so that they provide more of an opportunity for counterplay when encountering enemy teams using these trinkets. We’ll continue to keep an eye on the strength of these trinkets as the season progresses.
Professions
- Season 2 crafted Engineering goggles should now refund Tidalcores or Breath of Bwonsamdi and Expulsom when scrapped.
Quests
- Fixed an issue where Alliance players who had faction transferred to Horde could not see Nathanos in Dalaran to accept “The Warchief Beckons”.
- Nazgrim is once again available in Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar for Horde players on the questing experience to unlock Pandaria.
World Quests
- Faction Assault World Quests now properly give credit for the Weekly Quest “The World Awaits”.
- Pets should now summon and path correctly on Airships during Faction Assaults.
Hotfixes
January 22, 2019
Dungeons and Raids
- Fortified and Bolster will no longer increase the health of the Reaping ghosts.
The MOTHERLODE!!
- Fixed an issue causing Venture Co. Earthshapers to count double towards Enemy Forces criteria on Mythic Keystone difficulties. Slightly reduced the total Enemy Forces count.
Items
- Potions that grant the player Invisibility (such as Demitri’s Draught of Deception) now place a 5-minute cooldown on all other potion types (was 10 minutes). The shared cooldown time for invisibility potions remains 10 minutes.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Tome of Town Portal from being properly affected by Seafarer’s Hearth.
Player versus Player
- Every portion of Azerite powers that scale with item level have been reduced by 50% in PvP.
- Developers’ notes: With the advent of new five-ring Azerite armor in Season 2, we’re mindful of the increased potential for stacking and combining traits. Over the course of BfA we’ve also made adjustments to individual Azerite traits, but that creates uncertainty and unpredictability, where unless you’ve followed all our hotfixes you don’t know exactly how a given trait will change when you enter PvP. This aims to replace that uncertainty with a straightforward rule. This change also overwrites all previous reductions to Azerite Traits in PvP that occurred during Season 1, as they will all now have their reduction set to 50% effectiveness. Non-scaling and non-stacking effects are unaffected by this adjustment.
- Resolved an issue that caused Sinister Gladiator’s Maledict to not strike enemy players who have moved out of line of sight after the initial activation of the trinket.
Quests
- Players on “The Lord Admiral’s Lament” while on the Saurfang questline should now be able to see Isabella.
- “Quartermaster’s Bounty”, in which you turn in 10 Quartermaster’s Coins to get a Battleborn Sigil, is now a weekly repeatable quest.
A new Dev Q&A is going to take place this thursday and you can submit questions about patch 8.1 Tides of Vengeance part 2!
Quote from: Blizzard
Join us live on Twitch.tv/Warcraft Thursday, January 24, at 20:00 CET (19:00 GMT), as we sit down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas for our next live developer Q&A, where he’ll be answering your Tides of Vengeance part 2 questions.
You can submit your questions here in this thread or on Twitter by using the hashtag #WarcraftQA.
As a reminder, please keep your questions short (40 words or less) so that we can get to as many questions as possible. We look forward to you joining us live on Thursday!
Blizzard has released a survival guide for the changes coming next week. If you primarily play mythic+ or pvp you should make note of the following: “During the first week of Season 2 Mythic Keystone Dungeon rewards will be capped at Mythic 6 quality (item level 385). PvP Season 2 end-of-match rewards will be capped at 385.”
Quote from: Blizzard
There’s plenty to look forward to when Tides of Vengeance Part 2 goes live on January 23. Watch our Survival Guide to learn more.
New Raid: Battle of Dazar’alor
The Alliance will strike at the heart of the Zandalari empire—while the defenders of the Horde will rally to their new allies’ defense—in an epic new raid, Battle of Dazar’alor. This new raid provides both Horde and Alliance players with unique encounters for their faction—along with the opportunity to play through events from the opposite faction’s viewpoint. Learn more.
PvP Season 2 Begins
PvP Season 2 will begin and introduce an updated Conquest reward schedule, mounts, and gear. Players who earn 500 Conquest points in a given week through PvP activities including Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Assaults in War Mode will be still be able to choose a piece of gear from each week’s selection; in addition, they’ll now earn a Quartermaster’s Coin, which can be collected and ultimately used to upgrade pieces from this season’s Sinister Gladiator PvP set. Learn more.
Mythic Keystone Dungeon Season 2 Begins
The new Mythic Keystone Dungeon season opens opportunities for new rewards and a new challenge with the new seasonal affix: Reaping. High-level Keystones will now summon Bwonsamdi, the Loa of Death, to wreak some spectral havoc upon players’ dungeon run. As heroes kill enemies, the vanquished spirits will continue to linger in the mortal realm. At certain points throughout the dungeon, Bwonsamdi will resurrect these twisted souls, who will swarm the unfortunate adventurers in a final act of vengeance. (Blog coming soon.)
Azerite Armor Updates
With the release of Season 2, we’re introducing new epic Azerite pieces from PvP Season 2, the Battle of Dazar’alor raid, World Quest Emissaries, and from the Mythic Keystone vendor Thaumaturge Vashreen in Zuldazar and Boralus. These new items will have a fifth ring with additional new trait options. Learn more.
Content Difficulty and Rewards Changes
With a new season upon us and the Dazar’alor raid dungeon opening, we wanted to share some additional information on the changes coming to a variety of dungeon and outdoor world encounters including increases to both difficulty and rewards.
- New Maximum Item Level: With great challenges come great rewards and the maximum possible item level will go up to 425.
- Battle for Darkshore Warfront: Battle for Darkshore rewards will also increase to 400 from both the outdoor boss and from Warfront quest that can be completed once per cycle. The difficulty of the Warfront will increase however, and the item level required to queue will increase to 335. These changes will go into effect after the current Warfront cycle has ended. Until that time, players will still receive Season 1 rewards.
- World Quest Emissary Rewards: World Quest Emissary weapon and armor rewards will also now scale up to 385 based on the player’s own item level. Rewards from the original Battle for Azeroth Launch World bosses will remain at item level 355 to stay on par with Uldir.
- Dungeon Rewards and Difficulty: The difficulty of Heroic and Mythic dungeons will also be increase as follows: Normal–340, Heroic–355, and Mythic– 370(baseline)
- Mythic Keystone Dungeons and PvP: During the first week of Season 2 Mythic Keystone Dungeon rewards will be capped at Mythic 6 quality (item level 385). PvP Season 2 end-of-match rewards will be capped at 385.
- Seals of Wartorn Fate: Seals of Wartorn Fate are not being reset and this same currency can be used for Battle of Dazar’alor and Season 2 bonus rolls; the cap on how many can be held at once remains at 5.
For additional insights on these changes, read the developer forum post.