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Category: The War Within

The War Within Alpha Development Notes 18 April 2024

Quote from: Blizzard

The War Within Alpha Development Notes


NEW ZONES AND DELVES

  • Isle of Dorn

NEW DUNGEONS

  • Cinderbrew Meadery
  • The Rookery

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

  • Level 70 Character Template
  • Maximum Level: 73

CLASSES

  • Developer’s note: Hero Talents can be accessed either naturally by leveling (first point is granted at 71) or can be boosted by interacting with the Questzertauren npc in Orgrimmar and Stormwind which will immediately boost you to level 71 and also grant you all 10 Hero Talent points.
    • Please note: Doing this will give you a permanent debuff that will reduce your damage done (so you do not overpower content due to having a larger amount of talent points than intended). Additionally, this process is not reversible, so if you’d like to experience the natural flow of progression, you’ll need to make a new character.
    • Additionally, as this is Alpha, there are a few callouts we wanted to make in regards to the readiness of Hero Talents.
      • Several Hero Talents trees have not had their new visual effects or audio added. These trees are using placeholder assets for now and will be updated over the course of Alpha.
      • Power tuning of these abilities is still in the early passes and will be ongoing.
      • There might be abilities that are labeled as NYI – these are Not Yet Implemented and will likely be a little bit prone to bugs until they’re fully implemented.
      • The User Interface frame for Hero Talents is still being polished and is missing a few bits of art, animation, and other small changes.
  • The following Hero Talents are available for playtesting in Public Alpha 1:
    • DEATH KNIGHT
      • Deathbringer (Blood/Frost)
      • Rider of the Apocalypse (Frost/Unholy)
      • San’layn (Unholy/Blood)
    • DEMON HUNTER
      • Aldrachi Reaver (Havoc/Vengeance)
    • DRUID
      • Druid of the Claw (Feral/Guardian)
      • Elune’s Chosen (Balance/Guardian)
      • Keeper of the Grove (Balance/Restoration)
      • Wildstalker (Feral/Restoration)
    • EVOKER
      • Chronowarden (Augmentation/Preservation)
      • Flameshaper (Devastation/Preservation)
      • Scalecommander (Devastation/Augmentation)
    • HUNTER
      • Dark Ranger (Marksmanship/Beast Mastery)
      • Pack Leader (Beast Mastery/Survival)
      • Sentinel (Survival/Marksmanship)
    • MAGE
      • Frostfire (Frost/Fire)
      • Spellslinger (Frost/Arcane)
      • Sunfury (Arcane/Fire)
    • MONK
      • Conduit of the Celestials (Mistweaver/Windwalker)
      • Master of Harmony (Mistweaver/Brewmaster)
        • Developer’s note: Master of Harmony will be accessible in the Hero Talent Tree, but there will be a handful of talents that are not fully implemented.
      • Shado-Pan (WIndwalker/Brewmaster)
    • PALADIN
      • Herald of the Sun (Holy/Retribution)
      • Lightsmith (Holy/Protection)
      • Templar (Retribution/Protection)
    • PRIEST
      • Oracle (Holy/Discipline)
      • Voidweaver (Discipline/Shadow)
    • ROGUE
      • Trickster (Subtlety/Outlaw)
    • SHAMAN
      • Farseer (Restoration/Elemental)
    • WARLOCK
      • Diabolist (Destruction/Demonology)
      • Hellcaller (Destruction/Affliction)
      • Soul Harvester (Demonology/Affliction)
    • WARRIOR
      • Colossus (Protection/Arms)
      • Mountain Thane (Protection/Fury)
      • Slayer (Fury/Arms)
  • DRUID
    • Developer’s note: A core aspect of the druid fantasy is that they have 4 specializations with a variety of magical and physical powers. We want the class tree to embody druids’ ability to invest in the powers of other specializations for useful utility and defensive power. We kept the central design of there being four main sections, one for each spec. You can invest in the Guardian section to access their powerful damage resistance, or the Restoration section to unlock self-healing. Further, the talents in the bottom half of the tree are divided into “physical” and “magical” halves that you can access by investing in either Feral / Guardian or Restoration / Balance sections. More details can be found in the Feedback: Druid Updates thread.
    • New Talent: Oakskin – Survival Instincts and Barkskin reduce damage taken by an additional 10%.
    • New Talent: Fluid Form – Shred and Rake can be used in any form and shifts you into Cat Form. Mangle can be used in any form and shifts you into Bear Form. Wrath and Starfire shifts you into Moonkin Form, if known.
    • New Talent: Ursoc’s Spirit – Stamina in Bear Form is increased by 10%.
    • New Talent: Instincts of the Claw – Shred, Swipe, Rake, Mangle, and Thrash damage increased by 5/10%.
    • New Talent: Lore of the Grove – Moonfire and Sunfire damage increased by 5/10%. Rejuvenation and Wild Growth healing increased by 3/5%.
    • New Talent: Starlight Conduit – Wrath, Starsurge, and Starfire damage increased by 5%. For non-Balance, Starsurge’s cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds and its mana cost is reduced by 50%.
    • Heart of the Wild now reduces the global cooldown of affected Balance cast-time spells.
    • Cat Form now increases the range of auto-attacks and melee abilities by 3 yards.
    • Swiftmend has been removed from the talent tree and is now baseline for Restoration Druids.
    • Improved Swipe has been removed from the talent tree and its benefit added to Swipe by default.
    • Moonkin Form has been removed from the talent tree and is now baseline for Balance Druids.
    • Feline Swiftness is now a 1 point talent that increases movement speed by 15%. It’s position is moved to gate 1 under Rake.
    • Thick Hide is now a 1 point talent that reduces damage taken by 4%.
    • Natural Recovery is now a 1 point talent that increases healing received by 4%. It no longer increases healing done.
    • Astral Influence is now a 1 point talent that increases the range of all your spells by 5 yards. It no longer increases auto attack or melee ability range.
    • Primal Fury now also increases Critical Strike damage of Mangle by 20%.
    • Ursine Vigor is now a 1 point talent that increases Stamina and armor in Bear Form by 15% for 4 seconds.
    • Guardian Druid improved Bear Form Stamina bonus decreased to 10% (was 20%).
    • Lycara’s Teachings is now a 2 point talent that grants 3/6% of various secondary stats.
    • Forestwalk is now a 1 point talent. It’s bonus increases your movement speed and healing received by 8% for 6 seconds.
    • Well-Honed Instincts is now a 1 point talent, its effect can occur once every 120 seconds.
    • Gale Winds / Incessant Winds choice node removed.
    • Tireless Pursuit removed.
    • Balance
      • Developer’s note: Our top goals for Balance Druid in The War Within are to ease some of the constraints on their rotation, open up a greater variety of builds and play styles, and tune their balance and resource generation. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Greater Alignment – Celestial Alignment lasts 40% longer. During Celestial Alignment, Solar Eclipse increases Nature damage done by an additional 5% and Lunar Eclipse increases Arcane damage done by an additional 5%.
      • New Talent: Stellar Amplification – Starsurge increases the damage the target takes from your periodic effects and Shooting Stars for 5 seconds. Reapplying this effect extends its duration, up to 20 seconds.
      • New Talent: Harmony of the Heavens – Starsurge or Starfall increase your current Eclipse’s Arcane or Nature damage bonus by an additional 1%, up to 5%.
      • New Talent: Touch the Cosmos – Casting Wrath in an Eclipse has an 8% chance to make your next Starsurge free. Casting Starfire in an Eclipse has a 10% chance to make your next Starfall free.
      • Umbral Embrace has been redesigned – Wrath and Starfire have a 20% chance to cause the next Wrath or Starfire you cast in Eclipse to become Astral and deal 100% additional damage. Now a 1 point talent.
      • New Talent: Umbral Inspiration – Consuming Umbral Embrace increases the damage of your Moonfire, Sunfire, Shooting Stars, and Starfall by 20% for 5 seconds.
      • Astral Smolder has been redesigned – Wrath and Starfire have a 45% chance to cause their targets to languish for an additional 80% of their damage dealt over 6 seconds.
      • Astral Communion has been redesigned – Maximum Astral Power increased by 20. Entering Eclipse grants 12 Astral Power.
      • Nature’s Grace has been redesigned – When Eclipse ends or when you enter combat, enter a Dreamstate, reducing the cast time of your next 2 Starfires or Wraths by 20% and increasing their damage by 50%.
      • All ability damage increased by 6%.
      • Wrath, Starfire, and Shooting Stars damage increased by an additional 15%.
      • Wild Mushrooms damage increased by an additional 25%.
      • Astral Power generation reduced:
        • Wrath: 6 (was 8)
        • Starfire: 8 (was 10)
        • New Moon: 10 (was 12)
        • Half Moon: 20 (was 24)
        • Full Moon: 40 (was 50)
        • Fury of Elune: 40 / 2.5 per tick (was 48 / 3 per tick)
      • Celestial Alignment duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
      • Incarnation: Chosen of Elune duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
      • Mastery: Astral Invocation value reduced by 17%.
      • Aetherial Kindling now extends during of active Sunfires and Moonfires by 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
      • Orbital Strike damage reduced by 25%.
      • Umbral Intensity now increases Starfire’s damage as well as its area-of-effect damage scaling – Solar Eclipse increases the damage of Wrath by an additional 20/40%. Lunar Eclipse increases the damage of Starfire by 20/40% and the damage it deals to nearby enemies by an additional 15/30%.
      • Waning Twilight is now a 1 point talent increasing damage you deal to targets with 3 or more of your periodic effects by 6%.
      • Balance of all Things now increases Critical Strike chance by 10/20%, decreasing by 1/2% every second.
      • Denizen of the Dream damage increased by 50%.
      • Friend of the Fae has been removed. Denizen of the Dream moved to Friend of the Fae’s location.
      • Positions of Aetherial Kindling and Lunar Shrapnel swapped.
      • Orbit Breaker and Sundered Firmament are now a choice node where Orbit Breaker was.
      • Primodial Arcanic Pulsar has been removed.
    • Feral
      • Developer’s note: Our top goals for Feral Druid in The War Within are to slow down its rotation a little to make Energy usage more tactical and to bring more clarity to playing the spec. We’re also trying to restore more of Tiger Fury’s identity and excitement, and simplifying some talent functionality to free up more choice in where you spend points. Many of these changes will read as nerfs – the goal is to build a healthy rotation and talent balance and buff damage to make that rotation competitive. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Resourceful Hunter – Leech increased by 2%. Versatility increased by 2%.
      • New Talent: Coiled to Spring – If you generate a combo point in excess of what you can store, your next Ferocious Bite or Primal Wrath deals 10% increased direct damage.
        • Developer’s note: This will only trigger during Berserk if you generate a combo point in excess of five while you already have 3 stacks of Overflowing Power.
      • New Talent: Savage Fury – Tiger’s Fury increases your Haste by 8% and Energy recovery rate by 20% for 6 seconds.
      • Mastery: Razor Claws has been redesigned – Now increases damage of Cat Form bleed and other periodic abilities.
      • Predator has been redesigned – No longer causes Tiger’s Fury’s cooldown to be reset when a target dies with one of your bleeds active. Tiger’s Fury lasts 5 additional seconds. Your combo point-generating abilities’ direct damage is increased by 40% of your Haste.
      • Taste for Blood has been redesigned – No longer scales with number of bleeds on a target. Ferocious Bite damage increased by 15% and an additional 15% during Tiger’s Fury.
      • Raging Fury has been redesigned – No longer increases Tiger’s Fury duration from spending combo points. Tiger’s Fury lasts 5 additional seconds.
      • All ability damage increased by 8%.
      • The direct damage of Shred, Rake, Swipe / Brutal Slash, and Thrash increased by an additional 10%.
      • Berserk duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
      • Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane duration reduced to 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
      • Berserk no longer increases the damage of Shred and Rake. It now increases all ability and auto-attack damage by 10%.
      • Sabertooth now increases damage Ferocious Bite’s primary target takes from all of your Cat Form periodic damage by 3% per combo point spent for 4 seconds (instead of 5% damage dealt by all Rips on all targets).
      • Tireless Energy now increases passive Energy generation by 8%/15% (was 10%/20%) and total Energy by 20/40 (was 30/60).
      • Primal Wrath Energy cost increased to 30 and its direct damage increased by 50%.
      • Tear Open Wounds now consumes 6 seconds of Rip damage during Berserk.
      • Moonfire in Cat Form with Lunar Inspiration duration increased to 18 seconds and overall damage reduced by 10%.
      • Moment of Clarity now increases the rate that Omen of Clarity triggers by 30% (was 50%).
      • Berserk: Heart of the Lion now reduces Berserk’s cooldown by 60 seconds (was reduces cooldown by 0.5 seconds per combo point spent).
      • Berserk: Frenzy now causes enemies to bleed for 135% of all direct damage dealt by combo point generating abilities (was 100%).
      • Soul of the Forest restores 2 Energy per combo point spent (was 3 Energy).
      • Apex Predator’s chance to trigger on a single target is reduced, but its chance to trigger in area-of-effect increases at a faster rate.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Dire Fixation
        • Protective Growth
        • Rampant Ferocity
        • Relentless Predator
      • Taste for Blood moved to Relentless Predator’s old location.
      • Infected Wounds moved to Taste for Blood’s old location.
    • Restoration
      • Developer’s note: In The War Within, we’d like to reduce active keybinds, increase the base power of Rejuvenation, and offer some new Heart of the Wild gameplay. With the removal of Adaptive Swarm, we’re opting to replace it with some new Heart of the Wild synergy that both increases the uptime of the effect and enables the Druid to focus on the hybrid gameplay further for its duration. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Dream of Cenarius – While Heart of the Wild is active, Wrath and Shred transfer 150% of their damage and Starfire and Swipe transfer 100% of their damage into healing onto a nearby ally.
      • New Talent: Call of the Elder Druid – When you shift into a combat shapeshift form or cast Starsurge, you gain Heart of the Wild for 10 seconds, once every 60 seconds.
      • New Talent: Thriving Vegetation – Rejuvenation instantly heals for 15/30% of its periodic healing and Regrowth’s duration is increased by 3/6 seconds.
      • New Talent: Prosperity – Swiftmend now has 2 charges.
      • Rejuvenation healing increased by 30%.
      • Grove Guardian’s healing reduced by 15%.
      • Wild Synthesis Wild Growth healing reduced by 15%.
      • Verdant Infusion now extends the duration of heal over time effects by 8 seconds (was 12 seconds).
      • Nurturing Dormancy is now capped at 4 second extension (was 6 seconds).
      • Abundance now increases the Critical Strike chance of Regrowth by 8% and decreases its mana cost by 8% per stack (was 5%).
      • Flourish has moved to a choice node with Photosynthesis
      • Invigorate has moved to a choice node with Embrace of the Dream.
      • Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild added to Personal Resource Display.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Adaptive Swarm
        • Unbridled Swarm
        • Luxuriant Soil
  • EVOKER
    • Evokers now start at level 10 (was level 58).
    • Evokers now unlock the talent pane immediately after choosing a specialization in the Forbidden Reach, and they no longer learn “temporary” talents as they complete the Forbidden Reach experience.
    • Several base spells that were previously learned at level 58 are now learned at level 10.
    • Mass Return is now learned at level 38.
    • Fury of the Aspects is now learned at level 48.
    • Devastation
      • Developer’s note: Devastation Evoker can generate very high threat at the start of a pull due to a combination of their Mastery: Giantkiller and the burstiness of spells like Fire Breath and Pyre (particularly when used with Dragonrage and Charged Blast). As a result, we’re reducing the threat these spells generate.
      • Fire Breath threat generated reduced by 50%.
      • Pyre threat generated reduced by 30%.
    • Preservation
      • Developer’s note: In this update, our goal was to incorporate Lifespark (Season 1 set bonus for Preservation) into the talent tree and expand talent options by improving the pathing of the tree. We also wanted to keep the flavor of the left side of the tree being Green, the middle being Red, and the right being Bronze.
      • New Talent: Lifespark – Reversion healing has a chance to grant you instant cast Living Flame and increase its damage/healing by 50%.
      • New Talent: Titan’s Gift – Essence Burst increases the effectiveness of your next Essence ability by 25%.
      • Life-Giver’s Flame is now a 1 point node (was 2). Its position has been relocated at the bottom middle of the tree.
      • Grace Period is now a 1 point node (was 2). Its position has been relocated as a capstone below Timeless Magic.
      • Font of Magic and Power Nexus have been relocated to the middle center of the tree.
      • Cycle of Life has been relocated as a capstone at the bottom left of the tree.
  • MONK
    • Developer’s note: Our main goals for the Monk Class tree are to introduce more optionality, refresh the cappers, and add a few new pieces of utility (such as an Enrage dispel), while still cutting down on overall keybind requirements. To accomplish this, we’ve added choice nodes to most active options that offer a passive option or changed pathing to allow more skipping of these spells. More details can be found in the Feedback: Monk Updates thread.
    • New Talent: Crashing Momentum – Targets you Roll through are snared by 40% for 5 seconds.
    • New Talent: Bounding Agility – Roll and Chi Torpedo travel a small distance further.
    • New Talent: Wind’s Reach – The range of Disable is increased by 5 yards. The duration of Crashing Momentum is increased by 3 seconds and its snare now reduces movement speed by an additional 20%.
    • New Talent: Ancient Arts – Reduces the cooldown of Paralysis by 8/15 seconds and the cooldown of Leg Sweep by 5/10 seconds.
    • New Talent: Jade Walk – While out of combat, your movement speed is increased by 15%.
    • New Talent: Pressure Points – Paralysis now removes all Enrage effects from its target.
    • New Talent: Energy Transfer – Successfully interrupting an enemy reduces the cooldown of Paralysis and Roll by 5 seconds.
    • New Talent: Quick Footed – The duration of snare effects on you is reduced by 20%.
    • New Talent: Spirit’s Essence: Transcendence – Transfer snares targets within 10 yards by 70% for 4 seconds when cast.
    • New Talent: Peace and Prosperity – Reduces the cooldown of Ring of Peace by 5 seconds and Song of Chi-Ji’s cast time is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
    • New Talent: Swift Art – Roll removes a snare effect once every 30 seconds.
    • New Talent: Celestial Determination – While your celestial is active, you cannot be slowed below 90% normal movement speed.
    • New Talent: Martial Instincts – Increases your Physical damage done by 2/4% and Avoidance increased by 2/4%.
    • New Talent: Healing Winds: Transcendence – Transfer immediately heals you for 15% of your maximum health.
    • New Talent: Chi Proficiency – Magical damage done increased by 2/4% and healing done increased by 2/4%.
    • New Talent: Lighter Than Air – Roll causes you to become lighter than air, allowing you to double jump to dash forward a short distance once within 5 seconds.
    • New Talent: Flow of Chi – You gain a bonus effect based on your current health. Above 90% health: Movement speed increased by 5%. This bonus stacks with similar effects. Between 90% and 35% health: Damage taken reduced by 5%. Below 35% health: Healing received increased by 10%.
    • New Talent: Rushing Reflexes – Your heightened reflexes allow you to react swiftly to the presence of enemies, causing you to quickly lunge to the nearest enemy within 10 yards after you Roll.
    • New Talent: Transcendence: Linked Spirits – Transcendence now tethers your spirit onto an ally for 1 hour. Use Transcendence: Transfer to teleport to your ally’s location.
    • Tiger Tail Sweep has been redesigned – Increases the range of Leg Sweep by 4 yards. Now a 1 point talent.
    • Elusive Mists has been redesigned – Reduces all damage taken by you and your target while channeling Soothing Mists by 6%. Now a 1 point talent.
    • Chi Wave has been redesigned – Every 15 seconds, your next Rising Sun Kick or Vivify releases a wave of Chi energy that flows through friends and foes, dealing Nature damage or healing. Bounces up to 7 times to targets within 25 yards.
    • Summon White Tiger Statue has been redesigned – Invoking Xuen, the White Tiger also spawns a White Tiger Statue at your location that pulses damage to all enemies ever 2 seconds for 10 seconds.
    • Ironshell Brew has been redesigned – Increases your maximum health by an additional 10% and your damage taken is reduced by an additional 10% while Fortifying Brew is active.
    • Escape from Reality has been redesigned – After you use Transcendence: Transfer, you can use Transcendence: Transfer again within 10 seconds, ignoring its cooldown.
    • Fatal Touch has been redesigned – Touch of Death increases your damage by 5% for 30 seconds after being cast and its cooldown is reduced by 90 seconds. Now a 1 point talent.
    • Clash has moved to the Class tree.
    • Improved Roll is now baseline for all Monk specializations.
    • Fortifying Brew cooldown is now 2 minutes for Mistweaver and Windwalker.
    • Many talents have changed positions.
    • The following talents are now 1 point:
      • Save Them All
      • Bounce Back
      • Resonant Fists
      • Grace of the Crane
      • Fast Feet
    • The following talents have been removed:
      • Improved Roll
      • Improved Vivify
      • Ferocity of Xuen
      • Hasty Provocation
      • Eye of the Tiger
      • Close to Heart
      • Generous Pour
      • Resonant Fists
      • Dampen Harm and Summon Black Ox Statue have been removed for Windwalker and Mistweaver.
      • Summon White Tiger Statue and Summon Jade Serpent Statue have been removed for Brewmaster and Windwalker.
    • Mistweaver
      • Developer’s note: Mistweaver is seeing a few updates including their class 2-set Chi Harmony bonus and the removal of Essence Font. We’re also adding a talent to help Mistweavers who are focused on melee to gain more value out of their Mastery stat. Essence Font’s removal will have a few outcomes, the most important of which to address will be melee Mistweavers in raid healing scenarios.
        We’re hoping the removal of Clouded Focus and consequent tuning of Vivify and Enveloping Mist will help Soothing Mist fill the gaps for them, but there are some realities around planting and casting that may feel worse than Essence Font did. Our goal here is to make the risk/reward feel worth it here through tuning, but we’re going to continue looking at this as we iterate in The War Within. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Crane Style – Rising Sun Kick now kicks up a Gust of Mist to heal 2 allies within 40 yards. Spinning Crane Kick and Blackout Kick have a chance to kick up a Gust of Mist to heal 1 ally within 40 yards.
      • New Talent: Deep Clarity – After you fully consume Thunder Focus Tea, your next Vivify triggers Zen Pulse.
      • New Talent: Chi Harmony – Renewing Mist applies Chi Harmony to its initial target, increasing their healing taken from you by 50% for 8 seconds.
      • Zen Pulse has been redesigned – Renewing Mist’s heal over time has a chance to cause your next Vivify to also trigger a Zen Pulse on its target and all allies with Renewing Mist, healing them increased by 5% per Renewing Mist active, up to 50%.
      • Jadefire Stomp no longer casts Essence Font, its cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds), and now casts Gusts of Mist on each ally healed.
      • Gust of Mist healing increased by 20%.
      • Jade Bond now increases the healing of Yu’lon’s Soothing Breath by 300% (was 40%).
      • Invigorating Mist healing increased by 8%.
      • Vivify healing increased by 9%.
      • Vivify now costs 3% base mana (was 3.4%).
        • Developer’s note: We are increasing the effectiveness of baseline Vivify with the removal of the Clouded Focus talent.
      • Burst of Life’s icon has been changed.
      • Various talents have changed locations.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Essence Font
        • Upwelling
        • Font of Life
        • Clouded Focus
    • Windwalker
      • Developer’s note: Our updates for Windwalker in The War Within are intended to address a few issues the specialization struggled with throughout Dragonflight. These points of focus for us were the power levels of the Haste and Mastery stats falling behind other options, Jadefire Stomp’s usability, and the Touch of Death gameplay focus. Other areas that we are also looking at are resource bloat, evening out their rate of auto-attacks, and adding more pronounced thematics through both gameplay and visuals. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Acclamation – Rising Sun Kick increases the damage your target receives from you by 4% for 12 seconds. Multiple instances may overlap.
      • New Talent: Flurry of Xuen – Your spells and abilities have a chance to activate Flurry of Xuen, unleashing a barrage of deadly swipes to deal Physical damage in a 10 yard cone. Invoking Xuen, the White Tiger activates Flurry of Xuen.
        • Developer’s note: This ability is still being implemented and will be added in the subsequent Public Alpha build.
      • New Talent: Martial Mixture – Blackout Kick increases the damage of your next Tiger Palm by 10%, stacking up to 12 times.
      • New Talent: Courageous Impulse – The Blackout Kick! effect also increases the damage of your next Blackout Kick by 175%.
      • New Talent: Energy Burst – When you consume Blackout Kick!, you have a 100% chance to generate 1 Chi.
      • New Talent: Gale Force – Targets struck by Strike of the Windlord are sent reeling from its impact, causing them to become vulnerable to your attacks for 10 seconds. Your abilities have a 100% chance to affect the target a second time at 10% effectiveness as Nature damage while they are vulnerable.
      • New Talent: Dual Threat – Your auto attacks have a 20% chance to instead kick your target dealing Physical damage and increasing your damage dealt by 5% for 5 seconds.
      • New Talent: Momentum Boost – Fists of Fury’s damage is increased by 100% of your Haste and Fists of Fury does 10% more damage each time it deals damage, resetting when Fists of Fury ends. Your auto attack speed is increased by 60% for 8 sec after Fists of Fury ends.
      • New Talent: Ordered Elements – During Storm, Earth, and Fire, Rising Sun Kick reduces Chi costs by 1 for 5 seconds and Blackout Kick reduces the cooldown of affected abilities by an additional 1 second. Activating Storm, Earth, and Fire resets the remaining cooldown of Rising Sun Kick and grants 2 Chi.
      • New Talent: Sequenced Strikes – You have a 100% chance to gain Blackout Kick! after consuming Dance of Chi-Ji.
      • New Talent: Revolving Whirl – Whirling Dragon Punch has a 100% chance to activate Dance of Chi-Ji.
      • New Talent: Knowledge of the Broken Temple – Whirling Dragon Punch grants 4 stacks of Teachings of the Monastery and its damage is increased by 20%. Teachings of the Monastery can now stack up to 8 times.
      • New Talent: Singularly Focused Jade – Jadefire Stomp’s initial hit now strikes 1 target, but deals 500% increased damage and healing.
      • New Talent: Communion With Wind – Strike of the Windlord’s cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds and its damage is increased by 20%.
      • New Talent: Brawler’s Intensity – The cooldown of Rising Sun Kick is reduced by 1 second and the damage of Blackout Kick is increased by 10%.
      • New Talent: Combat Wisdom – Every 15 seconds, your next Tiger Palm also casts Expel Harm and deals 100% additional damage. Replaces Expel Harm.
      • Glory of Dawn has been redesigned – Rising Sun Kick has a chance equal to 100% of your Haste to trigger a second time, dealing Physical damage and restoring 1 Chi.
      • Rushing Jade Wind has been redesigned – Strike of the Windlord applies Mark of the Crane to all enemies struck and summons a whirling tornado around you, causing Physical damage over 8 seconds to all enemies within 8 yards.
      • Jadefire Stomp has been redesigned – Strike the Ground fiercely to expose a path of jade for 30 seconds that increases your movement speed by 20% while inside, dealing Nature damage to up to 5 enemies and restores health to up to 5 allies within 30 yards caught in the path. Up to 5 enemies caught in the path suffer additional damage.
      • Inner Peace has been redesigned – Increases maximum Energy by 30. Tiger Palm’s energy cost reduced by 5.
      • Mastery: Combo Strikes is now 20% more effective.
      • Touch of Karma is now baseline for Windwalker.
      • Whirling Dragon Punch now deals additional damage to the first target struck and its damage is reduced beyond 5 targets.
      • Expel Harm no longer generates Chi for Windwalker.
      • Flying Serpent Kick no longer deals damage.
      • Mark of the Crane now only applies to the primary target of each strike.
      • Teachings of the Monastery now stacks up to 4 times (was 3).
      • Thunderfist now always generates 4 stacks of Thunderfist and additional stacks of Thunderfist per each additional target struck.
      • Transfer the Power no longer stacks from Rushing Jade Wind, but now stacks from Spinning Crane Kick.
      • Crane Vortex now increases the damage of Spinning Crane Kick by 15/30% (was 10/20%).
      • Spinning Crane Kick now cancels from using other spells or abilities, but no longer prevents auto-attacks for its duration.
      • Empowered Tiger Lightning’s effect is now baseline for Xuen, the White Tiger.
      • Invoker’s Delight now increases Haste by 20% while active (was 33%).
      • Xuen’s Bond now decreases the cooldown of Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger by 0.2 seconds (was 0.1 second) per Combo Strikes activation.
      • Dance of Chi-Ji’s chance to trigger reduced by 25%.
      • Tiger Palm Energy cost increased to 60 (was 50).
      • Chi Burst no longer generates Chi for Windwalker.
      • Many talents have changed positions.
      • Drinking Horn Cover and Spiritual Focus are now a choice node together.
      • The following talents are now 1 point:
        • Touch of the Tiger
        • Hardened Soles
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Power Strikes
        • Fatal Flying Guillotine
        • Skyreach
        • Serenity
        • Forbidden Technique
        • Widening Whirl
        • Bonedust Brew
        • Attenuation
        • Dust in the Wind
        • Flashing Fists
        • Open Palm
  • PALADIN
    • Multiple applications of Greater Judgment may overlap.
      • This also functions with Retribution’s multiple stack application.
    • Glyph of the Luminous Charger now only works while Crusader Aura is active.
    • Holy
      • Developer’s note: Our goals are to replace Light of the Martyr with a passive spell but keep the same thematic sacrifice theme, move more of their throughput from Beacon of Light into their baseline spells, and redesign Blessing of Summer to feel more specific to their role. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Bestow Light – Light of the Martyr’s health threshold is reduced to 70% and increases Holy Shock’s healing by an additional 5% for every 5 seconds Light of the Martyr is active, stacking up to 3 times. While below 70% health, the light urgently heals you every 1 second.
      • Light of the Martyr has been redesigned – While above 80% health, Holy Shock’s healing is increased 20%, but creates a heal absorb on you for 30% of the amount healed that prevents Beacon of Light from healing you until it has dissipated.
      • Blessing of Summer has been redesigned – Bless an ally for 30 seconds, causing 20% of all healing to be converted into damage onto a nearby enemy and 10% of all damage to be converted into healing onto an injured ally within 40 yards.
      • Beacon of Light now transfers 15% of healing done (was 25%).
      • Barrier Faith now transfers 20% of healing into its absorb (was 25%).
      • Word of Glory healing increased by 25%.
      • Light of Dawn healing increased by 20%.
      • Holy Shock healing increased by 20%.
      • Tyr’s Deliverance healing decreased by 15%.
      • Sacrifice of the Just now reduces the cooldown of Blessing of Sacrifice by 15 seconds (was 60 seconds).
      • Blessing of Sacrifice now transfers 30% of damage taken (was 20%) for Holy.
      • Fixed an issue that caused Tyr’s Deliverance’s healing to not be affected by some modifiers, such as Avenging Wrath.
      • Barrier Faith is now on a choice node with Holy Prism.
      • Tyr’s Deliverance and Reclamation have changed positions in the tree.
      • Light’s Hammer has been removed.
    • Retribution
      • Developer’s note: Our initial goal is to explore how we can make secondary stats more appealing to Retribution, to allow a natural progression of scaling throughout an expansion. Due to the nature of many talents offering guaranteed critical hits, it was difficult for us to make Critical Strike a stat that felt valuable. To address this, we’ve reworked and rebalanced these talents to not automatically crit. They will instead gain value when you do crit, such as increasing their critical strike damage.
        One of the sources of frustration we’ve seen when it comes to the Retribution spec tree is that there is a large amount of friction between Single Target and AoE builds, leaving very little wiggle room for any sort of hybridization. We’ve done some restructuring to alleviate some of this tension, to create more room to explore hybrid type builds for when the scenarios might call for it. Learn more here.
      • New Talent: Burn to Ash – When Truth’s Wake critically strikes, its duration is extended by 2 seconds. Your other damage over time effects deal 30% increased damage to targets affected by Truth’s Wake.
      • Righteous Cause has been redesigned – Each Holy Power spent has a 6% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice.
      • Art of War has been redesigned – Your auto attacks have a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice. Critical strikes increase this chance by an additional 10%.
      • Divine Hammer has been redesigned – Divine Hammers spin around you, consuming a Holy Power to strike enemies within 8 yards for Radiant damage every 2.2 seconds. While active, your Holy Power generating abilities recharge 75% faster, and increase the rate at which Divine Hammer strikes by 15% when they are cast. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
        • Now a 2 min cooldown. Damage increased by 300%. Divine Hammer base periodic decreased to 2.2 seconds (was 3 seconds)
        • Period scales with Haste.
      • Final Reckoning has been redesigned – Now increases the damage taken from your single target Holy Power spenders by 30%. Increases the damage taken from your other Holy Power spenders by 15%.
      • Vengeful Wrath has been redesigned – Hammer of Wrath deals 50% increased damage to enemies below 35% health.
      • Vanguard of Justice has been redesigned – Templar’s Verdict and Divine Storm cost 1 additional Holy Power and deal 20% increased damage.
      • Templar Strikes has been redesigned:
        • Charge cooldown increased by 15%.
        • Templar Slash, 2nd part of combo, overrides Templar Strike for 5 seconds (was 4 seconds).
        • Crusader Strike becomes a 2-part combo:
          • Templar Strike slashes an enemy for damage and gets replaced by Templar Slash for 5 seconds. Templar Slash strikes an enemy for damage, and burns them for 50% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds.
      • Truth’s Wake effect is now added to Wake of Ashes baseline.
      • Highlord’s Judgment has been renamed to Highlord’s Wrath.
      • Mastery: Hand of Light has been renamed to Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment – Now also causes Judgment to have a chance to blast the target with the Light, dealing Holy damage.
      • Highlord’s Wrath has been redesigned – Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment is 50/100% more effective on Judgment and Hammer of Wrath. Judgment applies an additional stack of Greater Judgment if it is known.
      • Adjudication has been redesigned – Critical Strike damage of your abilities increased by 5% and Hammer of Wrath also has a chance to cast Highlord’s Judgment.
      • Blades of Light has been redesigned – Crusader Strike, Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, and damaging single target Holy Power abilities now deal Holystrike damage and your abilities that deal Holystrike damage deal 5% increased damage.
      • Divine Arbiter now has an additional effect – Highlord’s Judgment and Holystrike damage abilities grant you a stack of Divine Arbiter.
      • Searing Light now has an additional effect – Highlord’s Judgment and Radiant damage abilities have a chance to call down and explosion of Holy Fire.
      • Blessed Hammer from Adjudication now spawns from the target of your Hammer of Wrath.
      • Execution Sentence now causes the enemy to suffer 20% of the damage dealt during its time after it expires (was 30%).
      • Execution Sentence damage no longer counts as a damage over time effect.
  • WARRIOR
    • Developer’s note: The Warrior class talent tree has been significantly reorganized to allow for more player choice and build diversity in Warrior builds, as well as improve access to utility abilities like Storm Bolt and Shockwave. Rage generation for all Warrior specs in Dragonflight has been higher than we’re happy with so we’ve removed or reduced the power of several Rage-generating effects. With tuning, this will introduce more tactical gameplay around when to use Rage spenders and make those spenders more impactful. More details can be found in the Feedback: Warrior Updates thread.
    • Significant re-arrangement of many talents on the Warrior tree.
    • Berserker Rage now auto-learned at level 12.
    • Thunder Clap base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
    • Slam damage normalized across all specializations (Arms-only Slam damage bonus removed), and damage increased by 200%.
    • Blood and Thunder no longer increases Rage cost or damage of Thunder Clap.
    • Crackling Thunder also increases damage of Thunder Clap by 10%.
    • Frothing Berserker now refunds 10% Rage for Arms and Fury, and 25% Rage for Protection.
    • Shockwave no longer generates Rage on cast.
    • Champion’s Spear generates 10 Rage on cast (was 20).
    • Thunderous Roar no longer generates Rage on cast.
    • Thunderous Words now causes Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effect to increase damage targets take from all the Warrior’s bleed effects, rather than passively increasing it all the time.
    • The following talents have been removed:
      • Titanic Throw
      • Sonic Boom
    • Arms
      • Developer’s note: In Dragonflight, Arms Warriors were most impacted by Rage over-generation, and combined with Arms having several mechanics that interact with Rage spend (Tactician, Anger Management, and Test of Might) led to certain builds dominating for most of the expansion and led to Arms rotation being overwhelmed by ability resets. To address this, in The War Within, Arms is receiving significant Rage generation and Rage cost adjustments as to make Rage management interesting for Arms. Many Arms talents have also seen significant changes, with the aim to give Arms Warriors more choices for their builds and rotation based on their preferences and the content they are playing, as well as more control over how and when they generate additional Rage. Learn more here.
      • Moderate re-arrangement of several talents on the Arms tree.
      • New Talent: Finishing Blows – Overpower generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
      • Barbaric Training has been redesigned for Arms – Now grants 20% damage and 10% critical damage to Slam and Whirlwind.
      • Storm of Swords has been redesigned – Now grants Whirlwind a 30% chance to make your next Whirlwind cost 100% less Rage.
      • Rage generated from auto-attacks reduced by 16%.
      • Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
      • Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
      • Ignore Pain Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 40).
      • Cleave damage increased by 5%.
      • Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
      • Collateral Damage’s damage bonus now applies to Cleave as well as Whirlwind.
      • Unhinged now will cast Mortal Strike on your target if valid, falling back to a random target.
      • Warlord’s Torment no longer triggers from Colossus Smash. Duration of Recklessness buff increased by 50% and bonus Rage generation reduced to 25% (was 100%).
      • In for the Kill’s Haste bonus now lasts as long as Colossus Smash does.
      • Improved Overpower increases number of Overpower charges by 1.
      • Dreadnaught no longer increases number of Overpower charges.
      • Strength of Arms no longer causes Overpower to generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
      • Tactician chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 1% (was 1.3%).
      • Deft Experience increase to Tactician’s chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 0.5% (was 0.6%).
      • Valor in Victory’s Versatility bonus increased to 2% (was 1%).
      • Battlelord no longer generates Rage when triggered.
      • Skullsplitter now accelerates Rend’s Bleed baseline.
      • Ravager is now a choice node with Bladestorm. All existing Bladestorm sub-talents updated to work with both Ravager and Bladestorm.
      • Bladestorm no longer generates Rage on cast.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Tide of Blood
        • Reaping Swings
    • Fury
      • Developer’s note: In Dragonflight, the Fury talent tree allowed for players to specialize heavily in either Raging Blow or Bloodthirst, to the point of eliminating one or the other from their rotation. We think Fury works best when all the core rotational abilities see regular use, so we have made several changes to the Fury tree and abilities to ensure that both Raging Blow and Bloodthirst remain valuable for Fury Warriors in all builds, while maintaining build choice and rotational diversity for Fury Warriors with the return of Bladestorm to the Fury tree and the addition of a choice of Enrage effects. Learn more here.
      • Fury Warriors now learn Defensive Stance by default.
      • Moderate re-arrangement of several talents on the Fury tree.
      • New Talent: Powerful Enrage: Enrage increases the damage your abilities deal by an additional 15% and Enrage’s duration is increased by 1 second. On a choice node with Frenzied Enrage.
      • Bladestorm is now a choice node with Ravager. All existing Ravager sub-talents updated to work with both Ravager and Bladestorm.
      • Wrath and Fury now increases the chance for Improved Raging Blow to reset Raging Blow’s cooldown by 10% while Enraged.
      • Deft Experience no longer reduces Bloodthirst’s cooldown, instead it now increases Bloodthirst’s chance to trigger Enrage by 2% per point.
      • Tenderize no longer increases the duration of Enrage.
      • Frenzied Flurry has been removed, its effects have been added to Single-Minded Fury.
      • The following talents have been removed:
        • Raging Armaments
        • Annihilator
        • Storm of Swords
        • Developer’s note: Annihilator and Sword of Swords provided an option for Fury players who wanted a lower “actions per minute” playstyle. However, we’re not happy with how they changed which abilities warriors used in their rotations. We are instead providing Powerful Enrage as a new option for a slower playstyle that synergizes with Fury’s rotation and flavor.
    • Protection
      • Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
      • Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
      • Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).

DYNAMIC FLIGHT

  • 440+ Flying Mounts will feature Dynamic Flight active abilities, faster speeds, and new animations in The War Within.
  • Known Issue: Dragonriding talent panel is not available outside of Dragon Isles. To access the talents, paste this command into the chat box:
    • /run DragonridingPanelSkillsButtonMixin:OnClick()

ITEMS

  • The item levels of leveling gear have been adjusted to be rewarded at an appropriate item level through level 70.
    • Developer’s note: With this adjustment the leveling content should feel easier for all players as the items being rewarded will be a higher item level. All leveling items will follow this high item level cadence except for heirlooms. Heirlooms still have the advantage of increasing their item level as the wielder levels. In general, this should make leveling a more fluid and pleasant experience!
  • The sell value of the Elegant Canvas Brush has been reduced to 100 gold.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • DRUID
    • Call of the Elder Druid has been removed from PvP talents and is now a Restoration Druid talent.
  • PALADIN
    • Holy
      • Barrier Faith is now 50% more effective in PvP combat (was 100%).

PROFESSIONS

  • Developer’s note: We added Inspiration in Dragonflight to try and capture the fantasy of critical hits while crafting. If you weren’t quite capped out on your gear and specializations for a given craft, or if you weren’t using max quality reagents to guarantee that max quality item, Inspiration was a way to get that lucky crit. It could save you some money (by using lower-quality reagents) and you could craft a better item than you would otherwise.
    That was the hope at least, but it ended up (understandably) becoming a situation where crafters take this luck-based system, tell their customers that they would recraft an item an indeterminate number of times, and summarily charge a specific price per recraft until their Inspiration struck. So, in The War Within, we’re removing Inspiration. In its place, we have a new ability for crafters to utilize: Concentration and a new stat: Ingenuity. Learn more about this change in the Professions Update: Concentration in The War Within feedback thread.
  • New Ability: Concentration – Concentration is a resource that you have a separate pool of per crafting profession. It represents your ability to heavily focus on your recipes and exceed your normal capabilities. You choose when you want to Concentrate using a button within the crafting window, empowering your next craft(s). Doing so will cause the craft to automatically reach the next level of quality, no questions asked.
  • New Stat: Ingenuity – You have a chance to have an ingenious breakthrough when you Concentrate on a craft, refunding all Concentration spent.
  • ALCHEMY
    • Alchemy is in a near-complete state, beyond some polish and tuning work that will likely happen in broad strokes across all professions. Most, if not all recipes should be able to be crafted and utilized, and the specialization tree should be largely reflective of the final experience; all subject to feedback of course. Your good friend Instructaur and his cohort can supply you with the training and materials needed to experiment, and the items you make should be functional and ready for testing. Some additional notes:
      • Phials have been rebranded to be profession effects only, retaining the 30m extendable duration. Flasks make a return with 1h durations!
        • As a quality of life bonus, you can now have phials and flasks active at the same time.
      • Experimentation has been carried forward from Dragonflight but with some adjustments in effort to mitigate frustration while keeping with the theme.
        • You now select which herb to experiment with, and can only discover recipes that utilize that particular herb.
        • Experimentation now has two forms: A repeatable version that you can do with short lockouts (which can be bypassed with Formulated Courage), and a time-gated one that boasts a much higher chance at recipe discoveries.
      • Transmutation has been significantly expanded with a system called Thaumaturgy. This is a side component of Alchemy that boasts extra complexity which allows you to regularly transmute a variety of reagents found on Khaz Algar into other forms. While this process is highly destructive, specializations and clever choices in your inputs will ultimately bring you closer to transmuting Blasphemite, the elusive and highly coveted meta gem that is sure to catch the eye of aspiring Jewelcrafting entrepreneurs. Please take a look at the Thaumaturgy specialization tab and experiment with this feature with and without specializations and let us know how it feels!
      • Specializations now focus heavily on the herbs of Khaz Algar, so it is wise to evaluate the recipe list to determine which recipes appeal to you the most. Specializations for all herbs on a recipe contribute to the final rolls associated with them.
        • As a reminder, recipe difficulty tuning will happen in a later pass but you can nonetheless engage with this mechanic to observe their impact on crafts.
  • BLACKSMITHING
    • Specializations are in and ready for players to dissect!
      • Developer’s note: While the hookups aren’t fully implemented, I’m hoping the Everburning Forge Specialization catches player’s attention as a way to inject a helping of profession stats deterministically.
  • ENCHANTING
    • In this Alpha build, Enchanting has been enabled and can be trained by Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Dragonflight enchantments worked well to provide players with choices and customization, so many of the available options will look familiar in The War Within. There is a new host of weapon enchants available, as well as the new Cursed ring enchants as selectable options. Weapon Oils have also made a return, and Enchanting has an additional set of fun consumables to market to other players!
    • The vast majority of the enchants have been implemented, but some of them are still in progress.
      • Developer’s note: None of the enchants have been tuned yet, a baseline tuning will be done in the near future.
    • Some of the specializations include:
      • Designated Disenchanter
        • Master your fundamental disenchanting rituals, maximizing the quality of reagents you create when destroying items. You will gain +1 Skill per point in this Specialization when disenchanting.
      • Supplementary Shattering
        • Learn the art of shattering the magical essences of Khaz Algar, temporarily empowering your Resourcefulness, Multicraft, and Ingenuity. Additionally, your studies will grant you +1 Ingenuity per point in this Specialization.
  • FISHING
    • In this alpha build, the waters around Khaz Algar are populated with a single fish while we worked out a few updates to the ecosystem. However, fellow Anglers will notice a change in their Fishing Journal, namely Fishing Accessories!
    • Your existing Fishing Gear from the past will lose all Fishing stats and converting them to Fishing Accessories will permanently exchange the combat stats for the proper Fishing-related bonuses.
      • Developer’s note: We’re strictly looking out for any friction with this conversion, items we might have missed, or critical issues to fix before this is fully live.
  • HERBALISM
    • In this Alpha build, Herbalism has been enabled and can be trained by Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Specializations for herbalism have been fully implemented, and in addition to some of the fan favorites, we also have some new abilities and bonuses that you can specialize into. Finally, herbs are growing all over the Isle of Dorn, including ones that have been affected by the magics present on Khaz Algar. As always, we appreciate your time and feedback!
    • The base idea behind Herbalism specializations in The War Within is the same as Dragonflight, but there have been changes and additions to some of the bonuses.
      • The Botany specialization now has a Mulching sub-specialization, which allows you to make potent magical mulch and learn to utilize your Green Thumb.
        • Mulching allows you to consume some of the common herb, Mycobloom, to make a consumable Mulch that gives you a large Finesse bonus to the next herb you gather.
        • Green Thumb, also learned from the Mulching tree, is an activatable cooldown that doubles the amount of herbs you receive from the next herb you gather.
  • JEWELCRAFTING
    • Dragonflight Jewelcrafters will feel right at home with the updates in War Within! A familiar lineup of recipes await your discovery, but with a variety of new cantrips and an updated set of gems. We felt that Jewelcrafting’s structure, particularly its vast array of gem choices, fit well under the new profession system and wanted bring that with us into the new expansion.
    • Item quality has been removed from raw gems and there is only one tier instead of two. Enjoy the reclaimed inventory space! The same lineup of gem options and their associated stats has been carried forward. For reference:
      • Amber: Stamina
      • Emerald: Haste
      • Onyx: Mastery
      • Ruby: Critical Strike
      • Sapphire: Versatility
      • Weighted hybrid combinations of all of the above!
    • Ordinary hybrid gem cuts are now entirely sourced through Specializations rather than distributed across various parts of the game, in any order you choose. Knowing your customers and the gaps in the market is critical for maximizing your profits – but eventually all invested Jewelcrafters will be able to acquire all of the gems as usual.
  • LEATHERWORKING
    • Leatherworkers, your profession is available to be trained by Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind! The general structure of Leatherworking remains the same as in Dragonflight, crafting a variety of armor pieces for both Leather and Mail wearers. Leatherworkers will also find that they have a new market in reagents with the ability to craft Weapon Grip Wraps and Armor Banding that is used in the high-level crafts of other Professions. We’ve also removed the specialization that granted general Skill across the board, so it should be clearer what specializations you need to focus on if you want to get max quality with a particular recipe.
    • The majority of the recipes are implemented, but a couple of the embellished pieces aren’t implemented. Please look for them to be fully functional in the near future!
      • Developer’s note: None of the effects have been tuned yet. Values related to stats bonuses, damage, or healing are very likely to change as the Alpha moves forward.
    • The majority of specializations are implemented as well, except for a couple of sub-specializations within the Learned Leatherworker tree. Some of the specializations include:
      • Learned Leatherworker
        • Master your Leatherworking fundamentals to increase your reagent efficiency, ability to Concentrate, general stitchwork, and production process.
          • This specialization tree is all about increasing your secondary crafting stats and increasing the efficacy of their effects.
      • Flawless Fortes
        • Master the techniques of Khaz Algar to craft specialty items beyond that of standard armor.
          • This specialization tree focuses on improving your crafting capabilities for embellished armor pieces, reagents, armor kits, and profession gear.

QUESTS

  • The War Within campaign chapters and local stories.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • Spellbook has been redesigned and moved to the same window as Talents and Specializations.
  • Professions now has its own micromenu button.
  • Mount Journal now has a button called Switch Flight Style that lets you switch between steady flight (normal flying) and Dynamic Flight.
  • NEW OPTIONS
    • Option to replace spiders with alternative creatures. This doesn’t affect gameplay or difficulty. Option under Accessibility > General > Arachnophobia Mode.
    • Icon can be used to mark your player character for visibility. Option under Accessibility > General > Self Highlight.
    • Highlight your character’s silhouette when blocked by objects in game. Option under Gameplay > Combat > Show Silhouette when Obstructed.
  • OBJECTIVE TRACKER
    • Updated Objective Tracker art.
    • Minimize settings are now on a new top level quest tracker header.
    • New animations on headers and objectives.
    • Icons for in progress quests have been updated.
    • Objective Tracker text size can be adjusted with Edit Mode.
      • Developer’s note: This will only apply for headers and most text lines in the tracker.
  • Added new 3D quest bangs and icons:
    • Meta quests
    • Repeatable quests
    • Campaign trivial quests
  • Flight map icons have been updated.
  • Flightmaster icon and bang has been updated.

The War Within Alpha Interview Roundup Part 2

More interviews have come out for The War Within and datamining has continued as well!

Below is a roundup of new information, of course you can expect some spoilers:

Quests/World content

  • The experience required to getting to level 70 is being massively reduced. A 75-80% reduction from 60 to 70 has been datamined (Wowhead)
  • Delves will also be part of the campaign (PCGamer)
  • At the end game Delves will have different variants of each Delve (IGN)
  • Keys for end of Delve chests will be earned through outdoor content (IGN)
  • There are likely to be a few Delves per week that are highlighted with bonus loot (IGN)
  • While they originally planned for one difficulty during leveling up, delves will have multiple difficulties during leveling up as well (MrGM)
  • The emphasis with Delve difficulty is on what’s more fun for the player, rather than the right choice (MrGM)

Gear/Itemization

  • Flightstones are being replaced with the evergreen Valorstones (MrGM)

Classes

  • Oracle Priest is no longer support oriented but instead focused on priest healing (Towelliee)
  • Some class talent trees are being updated to make room for new Hero Talent buttons on your action bars. They are paying attention at preventing button bloat with the addition of Hero Talents. (Towelliee)
  • In Alpha week 1 we’ll already see class talent changes for Evoker, Druid, Monk and Paladin (Towelliee)
  • They consider Augmentation Evoker to be a success. With The War Within they will add better combat log tracking as well  (Towelliee)
  • It’s likely in Midnight when the level cap goes up again they’ll add new talent points to the existing talent trees (IGN)
  • There are no plans for hero-class heritage sets (MrGM)
  • Non-evoker dracthyr classes will have an emphasis on playing in visage form (MrGM)

Dungeons/Mythic+/Raiding

  • There will always be some tension with affixes. It is discussed within the team and they don’t have anything to share right now. They’ll continue experimenting with them (Towelliee)
  • The Rookery dungeon will have Follower Dungeon support as it’s part of the campaign. No confirmation on all 8 dungeons being Follower Dungeons. (Towelliee)
  • They’ve discussed having a PvP Brawl-like feature to experiment with things for Mythic+ (Towelliee)
  • No seasonal affixes planned for The War Within (Towelliee)
  • They’re going to try making any dungeon part of the Mythic+ rotation possible as a Mythic+0 dungeon so that players in that bracket have seasonally changing content too (Towelliee)
  • Like previous old expansion dungeons, Grim Batol will get a rework that keeps the spirit of the dungeon. There will still be a bombing run (Towelliee)
  • They currently have nothing to say on tuning intentions for end of raid Mythic bosses (Towelliee)
  • In season 4 Dawn of the Infinite is tuned much higher so it feels and rewards like a mini raid (Towelliee)
  • Heroic dungeon queues will also be for the dungeons in the current seasonal rotation (IGN)
  • They don’t have a specific number of raids they’re committing to yet for TWW (IGN)
  • They’re happy with season lengths and raid tiers that last around 5 months (IGN)
  • They might only do the “heroic” week in the first tier of the expansion but have the Mythic raids be open on week 1 in the later tiers (MrGM)
  • They’re unlikely to test the final boss on the Beta on lower difficulties if their confidence internally in tuning and quality is high (MrGM)
  • Plans for season 4 TWW are not finalized (MrGM)
  • There are no plans to change from the 20man mythic raiding format (MrGM)
  • They would like to explore the ability to specate while dead (MrGM)

Dragonriding

  • Characters will learn Dynamic Flying at level 15 (Warcraft)
  • As you level up you’ll get the flying talents, no need to find Glyphs in the Dragon Isles (Warcraft)
  • Lightning Rush, the Whirling Surge replacement, of the War Within Heroic Edition mount, will be usable by other mounts as well (Warcraft)
  • There will be new Glyphs to collect across Khaz Algar for exploration achievements and cosmetic perks (MrGM)

Lore

  • The story will not be a darker story like Shadowlands. However the will be a lot more at stake. (PCGamesN)
  • In a way The War Within is a bit of a reset. In Dragonflight we took a step back to take a moment to breathe and this is the beginning of a new arc (PCGamesN)

Warbands

  • Raid skips will become account wide (MrGM)
  • They hope to provide options to customise the character login screen during TWW (MrGM)

UI

  • As spiders are predominant in The War Within, there will be a new Arachnophobia filter to change them into crabs (PCGamer)
  • While they won’t be doing it with The War Within, it is on their list to update the quest UI to better communicate lore and NPC interactions (MrGM)
  • They want to update Tabard customization in the future, but it won’t be for TWW (MrGM)
  • They would like to clarify and improve the visibility of respawn points in Raids (MrGM)

Professions

  • They are moving towards more cross realm features for the cross-realm auction house and want to remove barriers (MrGM)

Misc

  • They are expecting to announce a 2025 roadmap at the end of the year (MrGM)
  • The goal is to allow cross faction queueing (LFG/LFR) when you have a full group sometime during TWW (MrGM)
  • They have no intention to return to big borrowed power systems (MrGM)

Full Interviews/Sources:
Dev Interview Towelliee
Leveling Datamining Wowhead
World of Warcraft Flying Video
PCGamer Arachnophobia Filter
Story Interview PCGamesN
PCGamer Storytelling in Dungeons
IGN Dev Interview
London Group Interview Ion Hazzikostas, MrGM writeup

Previous Roundups:
The War Within Alpha Interview Roundup Part 1

The War Within Alpha Interview Roundup

The War Within Alpha is going live and that means there’s new developer interviews and other videos! Below is a roundup of new information:

Quests/World content

  • Dungeons will be part of the main Campaign but you can do follower dungeons to complete them if you prefer playing solo (WoWCast)
  • To start a Delve you click on the misty portal/door and it opens your own Delve instance (WoWCast)
  • Delves will have 11 difficulty levels (MMO-Champion)
  • Around Delve difficulty level 8 it will just be about bragging rights (MMO-Champion)
  • Delve progress will be account wide (MrGM)
  • In pre-season you can do delves and progress your companion to level 10, once a season starts it goes up to 50 (MMO-Champion)
  • They have talked about adding delves in older zones outside of TWW zones (MMO-Champion)
  • There are changes coming to World Quests but they’re not quite ready to talk about it yet (MMO-Champion)
  • The Live Team works on live content for the game. They don’t work on dungeons/raids/etc instead they work on things like more more holiday updates and fun content coming in the future (MMO-Champion)

Gear/Itemization

  • Tier sets are not going away. Delves will be included in the ways to obtain them (Raids/M+/PvP) (WoWCast)
  • Delves might grant gear up to Mythic+5 (MMO-Champion)
  • Outside of the highest item levels, Warbound equipment will be fairly common (MMO-Champion)

Classes

  • There are plans to expand the classes that Dracthyr can be but it won’t be at launch (MrGM)
  • Many of the Hero Talents have changed after the community gave feedback on the Hero talent blog posts (WoWCast)

Dungeons/Mythic+/Raiding

  • The season 1 dungeon rotation is Ara-kara City of Echoes, City of Threads, The Stonevault, The Dawnbreaker, Mists of Tirna Scithe (SL), The Necrotic Wake (SL), Siege of Boralus (BfA) and Grim Batol (Cata) (wowhead)
  • The team is still talking about making BfA raids more accessible for transmog farming…… (MMO-Champion)
  • Dawn of the Infinite was a progression experience and the team would like to do more of that (MMO-Champion)
  • The team is talking about how they can make Mythic+ affixes more interesting (MMO-Champion)
  • The team is still talking and looking at new affixes as well as positive affixes with a harder base difficulty (MMO-Champion)
  • In the first week of a season the Mythic raid will again not be available (Wowhead)

Dragonriding

  • They’ve made it possible for almost all old flying mounts to fly with dynamic flying/dragonriding (WoWCast)

Lore

  • Anduin and Alleria will be central characters running away from the wounds of their past and will in the end find redemption (WoWCast)
  • Magni Bronzebeard, Moira Thaurrisan and her son Dagran Thaurrisan will also play a part. Dagran has a very scholarly nature (WoWCast)
  • The raid is a city like Suramar. The nerubians are not super villains in a lair but a powerful race that we’re facing off against. (WoWCast)
  • The intro scenario will not be tested, however players will start on Khaz Algar in the wreckage of a crashed Dalaran (T&E)
  • They want to start with Dalaran crashing to let the players see the high stakes from the get-go. Anything can happen going forward, actions and events will have consequences (T&E)

Warbands

  • Warbands are a foundation. It allows them to structure data a lot more to be account based (WoWCast)
  • Any characters from any realm will show up on the favorites list (MrGM)
  • The account bound bank can get 5 tabs. Unlocking tabs costs an increasing amount of gold, ranging from 1000 gold to 2.5 mil gold (MrGM)
  • You can deposit gold into the bank to transfer gold between characters on different realms (MrGM)
  • A new toy you can earn with new leveling achievements allows you to open the bank from anywhere (MrGM)
  • The War Within and Dragonflight reputations will be account-wide upon launch (MrGM)
  • You can only get reputation from quests once. So doing quests on alts will not reward you with more rep (MrGM)
  • Achievement progress will be account wide but class specific achievements will not be (MrGM)
  • Leveling characters up to 80 gives you an account wide 5% bonus experience, up to +25% (MrGM)
  • Selling an item you can’t wear at all will add the transmog to your collections tab (MrGM)
  • New kinds of achievements are being added that might require you to use multiple characters to complete (Wowhead)

UI

  • Quest markers are getting an overhaul to make it much more clear what type of quest they are (WoWCast)
  • The collections UI now has a dropdown for different classes (MrGM)
  • Ocean graphics at the beach have been updated (MMO-Champion)

PvP

  • Rated battlegrounds are being replaced by the Battleground Blitz (WoWCast)

Professions

  • They will fundamentally be like they were in Dragonflight (WoWCast)
  • Work orders will see the addition of NPC work orders (WoWCast)
  • The team is experimenting with Archaeology but nothing is confirmed for launch (MMO-Champion)
  • Herbalism will have a mini-game in Hallowfall (MMO-Champion)

Dragonflight Retrospective

  • When they started on DF they set the goal of 8 weeks per patch. Now they’re looking at how can they make this content cadence sustaintable for both the dev team and players (MrGM)
  • They set goals for the more different patches such as Plunderstorm and Remix. Plunderstorm met those goals and they’ll see on Remix. (MrGM)
  • There are a lot of different versions of WoW now (Retail, Classic, Season of Discovery, Hardcore) and they can do that because they have the player base to do so. A lot of what they’ve done in game modes for classic is a direct reaction to what the community wants. And with TWW they’ll be adding things based on community feedback too. Delves and warbands are two of those things that are a direct reaction to player feedback. (MrGM)
  • The teasing of patch 10.2.6 did not go the way it was intended. It was unplanned and they overplayed it. (MrGM)

Misc

  • They are strategic about the releases of different WoW modes not conflicting with each other. However they are fortunate that the Retail and Classic (Cata) player bases don’t overlap much. So they are not too concerned about releasing content for those 2 WoW game modes closely together. (MrGM)
  • The experimental gameplay team is now just part of the live content team and they have a giant list of crazy things they want to do (MrGM)
  • We can expect more of the experimental gameplay in The War Within. What works will return. (MrGM)
  • Holly is excited for the content planned for the more casual player. Delves and follower dungeons in particular. (MrGM)
  • There is a new toy to reveal the maps for any full maps your characters have explored (MrGM)
  • The team does not want you to feel forever behind if you miss a few days. The team has no plans to bring back such grinds (MMO-Champion)

Full Interviews/Sources:
The War Within WoWCast
Interview with Holly Longdale MrGM
Season 1 Dungeon Rotation Wowhead
Warbands First Look MrGM
Taliesin & Evitel & Dalaran
MMO-Champion Developer Q&A
New account wide achievements Wowhead
Non-Mythic First Week of a Season Wowhead

The War Within: Warbands Preview

Quote from: Blizzard

Get a closer look at the new Warbands System with the World of Warcraft development team.

With public access to The War Within test phase just around the corner, we want to share more details about what’s in development for Warbands.


What are Warbands?

The new Warbands system being introduced in The War Within will encompass all of the characters on a player’s Battle.net account as well as the items, collections, and progression they share.

It’s important to note that your Warband is limited to characters within a single region (i.e., Americas, Europe, Korea, Taiwan) but spans every realm, faction, and even subscription you may have within that region

Many aspects of World of Warcraft have been shared across your account for a long time—essentially a Warband. This includes your collection of pets, mounts, transmogs, heirlooms, and more. With the release of Warbands, we are significantly expanding what additional aspects of the game have Warband integration. To name just a few changes:

  • New reputations and Renown tracks will be Warband-wide.
  • A new Warband bank will allow you to easily store and share items between your characters.
  • The ability to collect most item appearances with any character in your Warband, regardless of their ability to equip the gear.

Goals of the Warband System

Before getting into the details of each change that players will experience with Warbands, we want to share the main goals we are aiming to accomplish with the system’s introduction:

  • Make playing alternate (alt) characters easier and more enjoyable – Data shows that many players already have an alt or two (or ten) and enjoy playing them,  so we want to make playing them even better.
  • Switch between characters without falling behind – There will always be a lot of character-specific progression in World of Warcraft, such as high-end gearing, but wherever it’s appropriate, moving progression onto your Warband should allow you to freely play multiple characters without losing efficiency or long-term progress.
  • Acknowledge the player behind the screen – In other words, wherever possible, we want to celebrate your accomplishments within your Warband, not only on your character, so you can carry those accomplishments with you to whichever character you choose to play.
  • Clarify which aspects of the game are account-wide versus character-specific – It hasn’t always been clear which parts of the game apply to your characters versus your account. We’ve taken this opportunity to clarify these differences in the UI, as well as replacing the term “account” with “Warband” throughout the game.

Let’s get into more details of what Warbands will entail.


Warband Conversions

One of the major undertakings of Warbands is to convert aspects of the game which are currently character-specific to become Warband (Account) wide. This conversion process is being developed to run automatically upon your first login after The War Within pre-expansion patch goes live. This means players won’t need to log into each character for the conversionThere may be some wait time for the system to process your Warband upon first login, however. Please be patient while this occurs, as it involves processing a lot of data!

Warband-Wide Reputation

Once The War Within launches, most new and many Dragonflight reputations will become Warband reputations.

When you have a Warband reputation, any progress you make on one character will be shared with all your characters. Rewards will also be unlocked for all characters, although the form this takes will vary per reward. Warband-wide rewards will be granted only once, while some rewards will remain character-specific and need to be collected on each character.

Once a reputation is converted to Warband-wide, reputation progress will display as the furthest that any character in your account has achieved. If you were at Renown 5 for Valdrakken Accord on one character and Renown 10 on another, your new Warband Valdrakken Accord Renown will be 10.

We opted for the furthest progress earned because, for many reputations, progress is not earned evenly. You can earn a lot of front-loaded reputation from doing campaigns and other one-shot quests. The thought behind this was that if we added all the reputations earned across all characters together, this would create an unfair advantage for players who play many alts over those who spend their time on one or just a few characters.

Here is the full list of converted reputations from Dragonflight:

  • Renown
    • Dragonscale Expedition
    • Maruuk Centaur
    • Iskaara Tuskarr
    • Valdrakken Accord
    • Loamm Niffen
    • Dream Wardens
  • Standard
    • Wrathion & Sabellian
    • Cobalt Assembly
    • Artisan’s Consortium
    • Azerothian Archives
    • Soridormi

The few reputations we opted not to convert, including Winterpelt Furbolg and Glimmerogg Racer, were due to not fitting within the fantasy for those reputations. Winterpelt Furbolg has a language learning component that doesn’t make much sense to be shared across characters, and the Glimmerrogg Racer reputation feels more like a personal standing in the snail races than an actual reputation that should be shared. These are also minor reputations that wouldn’t be as impactful Warband-wide.

When it comes to future conversion of reputations, the current plan is to work backward into older expansions, converting many old reputations over time. As it’s a time-consuming effort, it will take a while to implement. Similar to reuptations within Dragonflight, there will also be a limited number that won’t be converted, usually this will be because it doesn’t make sense from a fantasy perspective or because it involves a character-specific choice. For example, Aldor and Scryer in the Burning Crusade and the Covenants in Shadowlands won’t be converted because they represent per-character choices.

First-Time Quest Rewards

Part of Warband reputation implementation is in satisfying the goal that players with many alts don’t have an intrinsic advantage over those who focus their playtime on a single character. To accomplish this, we are introducing a new concept with quest rewards. Players can earn a bonus quest reward for any quest completed for the first time on their Warband. An additional, different, bonus will can be granted for completing a quest additional times.

The most common way we anticipate granting this bonus inThe War Within quests is when rewarding Warband reputation. Specifically, we plan for quests to only give reputation as a first-time completion bonus. On additional completions of the same quest on alts, players will earn a bonus reward currency similar to Dragon Isles Supplies instead of reputation. This currency will be freely transferable across the Warband and can be used to purchase various Warband-level rewards such as cosmetics, mounts, and pets.

With this setup, you can complete quests for any character you want without impacting your reputation or progress. Whichever character completes them first will earn the reputation for your Warband. This also avoids the situation in which a player who plays many characters can rapidly advance in reputation over someone who only plays one character.

What About Diplomacy?

The human racial Diplomacy is currently designed to grant a bonus 10% to reputation for players who choose that race. Unfortunately, with Warband reputations, this racial causes problems due its character-specific nature.

We don’t want players to feel compelled to play a specific character or race to earn Warband-level rewards more efficiently, so we will convert this race-specific bonus into something new. We’ll share more information on it at a later date.

Earning Achievements for Your Warband

Achievements have always had an account-wide component to them. Some achievements (those with a blue shade) are fullyaccount-wide. Progress on these is shared across characters and completion is for the entire World of Warcraft account.

There have also always been character-specific achievements in which progress and completion of these achievements is per character. These achievements show as complete if any character on the the account has completed them. Often, the rewards earned are also character-specific.

In the past, we have displayed your account-wide achievement point total in some places (like at the top of your achievement pane) but only your character total in others (like in guilds).

With the introduction of Warbands, we want all achievements to be considered “Warband” achievements. You, the player, accomplished them, so you should not feel like you need to complete them on more than one character or feel like you do not want to play another character because they are missing achievements.

Given this, we are eliminating the concept of a character-based achievement score. From now on, a total Warband achievement score will be tracked and displayed instead. This score will be the sum of all account-wide achievement points plus the points from any character-specific achievements completed on any character.

We are also converting many achievements to be account-wide. In fact, we will be converting approximately 2000 achievements from across all expansions. The philosophy we are following for this conversion is that if an achievement has the possibility of sharing progress across characters (e.g., do x things), we want to convert it so all characters can share progress on it. It shouldn’t matter whether you returned 50 flags as a defender in Warsong Gulch on a single character or whether you like PvPing on 10 characters and did it 5 times on each.

There are a few rare exceptions to this, however. Specifically for achievements where doing the activity on one character is part of what makes it hard or interesting. One such example is Insane in the Membrane.

The hard part of this achievement is maxing out diametrically opposed reputations. We don’t want to undermine the accomplishments of those players who have completed these particularly difficult achievements in the past, so we won’t be converting achievements like this.

In addition, any achievements that would not benefit from shared progression across characters, such as Memories of Teldrassil, will be left character-specific so you can see what cool things you have done on specificcharacters for posterity. But again, this will have no impact on your achievement score, rewards, or ability to complete achievements.

We have also taken a look at the rewards granted by achievements. For these, we mostly want them to be Warband-wide. Therefore, in many cases we are making the reward go to the entire Warband, such as for most titles. In other cases we are simply converting the entire achievement and its reward to be account wide. For example, dungeon teleports earned by Keystone Hero achievements, will become account-wide, both in the achievement and the reward.

The primary exception to rewards being Warband-wide is those that are intrinsically per character, such as Dreaming of Wyrms.

Another exception is achievements that celebrate highly prestigious accomplishments on a specific character, like the Gladiator: Dragonflight Season 3 achievement, whose title and progress will remain character-specific.

To address how we  progress for achievements across characters—for most achievements, we are adding your progress across all your characters. For example, if you have done 200 personal crafting orders on each of 3 different characters, the Personal Crafter achievement will immediately be completed upon login.

There are a few achievements where it only makes sense to take the highest value across your characters, such as the Reach Level 70 achievement. In most cases, these are not being converted as there is no benefit. For the exceptions where there are, we will use the highest value you have reached on any character.

Shared Flight Points for Your Warband

We are converting flight points to be account-wide. For standard flight points you have yet to learn, you will only have to collect these on one character, and they will be unlocked across your Warband. Flight points that have already been collected on any character across your account will be unlocked for your Warband.

Preserving Map Exploration

Map exploration is an interesting subject to consider as we worked through how we wanted the Warbands system to work. Initially, a plan was in place to convert map exploration to something available account-wide. After further reflection, we decided it was better to preserve map exploration as it is. Not only can it be fun to reveal new parts of a map, but it also provides experience and can help you keep track of the areas you’ve already explored.

For those who may not be as interested in re-exploring every map on all your characters, we are adding The Warband Map to Everywhere All At Once toy.

No Currency Confusion

Like map exploration, it was decided to handle currency a little differently. Rather than making it fully Warband-wide, which could create potential confusion,  we opted to make it easier to transfer currency between characters in your Warband instead. This will help avoid confusion over spending the wrong currency on the wrong character.

With this new flow, instead of relying on buying a special item and mailing it to an alt, you can directly transfer any shareable currency from other characters to the one you are currently playing within the currency User Interface (UI).

Currencies intended for purchasing Warband-wide items such as cosmetics, pets and mounts will usually be completely free to transfer between members of your Warband.

There may be some cases in which a currency is earned on a character with the intent that the character will be the primary user of the currency, but where we want to allow players to shift any excess currency to an alternate character. In those cases, there will be a slight loss in the transfer of that currency. This is akin to older currencies in which this value loss was accomplished via an item purchase, such as Cosmic Flux from Shadowlands.

Note that there will still be many currencies that will remain non-transferable because they represent important character-based progression. Two examples of these are the Crest and Flightstone equivalents in The War Within.

Lastly, we will be taking a pass on all older currencies and enabling Warband transfer on many where appropriate.


Items and Gear in your Warband

While gear is one of the primary forms of character-specific progression in World of Warcraft, we are adding a variety of improvements to items and gear to make managing and collecting them more convenient and alternate character-friendly.


Warband Bank

The Warband Bank can be accessed at bankers throughout the game. It will provide up to five tabs with ninety-eight available inventory slots each. Each tab can be purchased for an increasing amount of gold. These tabs can be customized with an icon and organized like a Guild Vault. This bank is in addition to your individual character bank vault.

Any non-soulbound item can go into the Warband Bank. All characters in your Warband can access the bank to freely deposit and withdraw items. The bank will also behave like the reagent bank, allowing you to craft using reagents from it without having to withdraw them.

In addition, the bank will allow you to deposit and manually withdraw gold across characters in your Warband.

There is one limitation that is worth noting. Like pet battles, players who play multiple characters simultaneously on multiple World of Warcraft accounts will find that only the character that logs into the realm first will have access to the Warband Bank.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that we would like to update the UI and functionality of the character-level bank to also use tabs like the Warband bank. While this won’t be done at the launch of The War Within, we are planning for it to come soon after. When this change occurs, bags will no longer be needed in the character bank. It’s intended that this change won’t alter the number of slots currently available in your bank. It will just shift those slots from bags to tabs.


Warbound until Equipped Gear

Warbound until Equipped is a new type of gear binding that we are introducing in The War Within. Gear that is Warbound until Equipped can be freely traded across your Warband but becomes Soulbound once it’s equipped by a character.

In the past high item-level account-bound gear hasn’t been available because it could be used and freely traded across characters. For example, it would be too easy to transfer a high item-level account-bound ring between characters if it did not bind to a character when equipped. Players would be tempted to trade between all their alternate characters depending on who they were playing. This isn’t the type of gameplay we want to encourage or support.

With the introduction of Warbound until Equipped (WuE) gear, we are excited to start providing this much higher item-level gear more often in a manageable and beneficial way.

We are still working out more of the design details, but the current plan is to have WuE gear available within raids, dungeons, and the new Delves feature. Whenever you earn loot, you will have a small bonus chance to gain an additional piece of WuE gear as personal loot. This gear will be at least one lower tier than other loot from that source (currently a full upgrade track lower (e.g., Hero-> Champion), and it could be gear usable by any class.

Simply by playing, you will occasionally collect gear a single tier lower than your current gear, which could be sent to help an alternate character or even to use for a new class you’ve been meaning to try.

You will also occasionally stumble on Warbound until Equipped gear elsewhere while playing, so keep a look out.


Enhancing Your Transmog Collection

Collecting transmog appearances has long been something that has required players to plan gear runs on a per armor type basis, even though item appearances are shared across the account. With the introduction of Warbands, we want to make collecting appearances much more Warband-centric. To help players continue to expand their collections and style their alternate characters how they want, in  The War Within any character can collect any item appearance, regardless of if they can equip the item or not.

Class-specific appearances are an exception and will still be collectible only by that specific class. Most class-specific items can only be collected by those classes through a set piece token, and others are often only aquireable by that specific class anyway. Overall, it’s intended that this restriction has little influence on your ability to collect the majority of the transmogs that you want for your Warband.

It’s important to note that these changes only affect your ability to collect appearances. Existing rules on which characters can use any given appearance are not changing (e.g., a Priest getting a plate helm drop will unlock the appearance for your plate-wearing characters, even though they cannot use plate appearances themselves).

With this change, we also wanted to allow you to view appearances on any character of any class or race within the appearances UI.

We are also making it easier to collect appearances from unbound items. You will no longer need to equip the item to add it to your collection. Any time you destroy an item via disenchanting, deleting, selling, etc., you will automatically collect the appearance. There is also a new flow to directly collect the appearance from Bind on Equip (BoE) gear that you cannot equip by converting it to “Warbound until Equipped” instead.

Existing gear in your character-level bank or bag inventory will be automatically added to your transmog collection when you first log into that character.

To account for these changes, we are making a slight adjustment to how rolling for gear in raids with Group Loot works. Any gear that drops with transmog appearance you haven’t collected yet will have the Transmog option to roll for it rather than the Greed option (Transmog has higher priority).

When rolling Transmog, any gear that drops that can be equipped by your current character will get a higher rolling priority than those rolling with characters who cannot equip the item (e.g., a priest will always beat a warrior when both roll transmog on a piece of cloth gear).


Everyone All Together—Updated Character Select Screen

We have updated the Character Select screen so you can see your entire Warband in one list of characters. You will no longer need to swap between realms to see characters on those other realms. The one exception to this is if you have multiple World of Warcraft subscriptions within one Battle.net account. In this case, you will only see the characters on the account you’re logged in on even though all your characters across subscriptions are included as a part of your Warband.

We also thought it would be fun to see some of the characters in your Warband hanging out together.

For the launch of The War Within, you will only be able to assign four characters to this one scene. We are working on building more of these scenes for you to collect in the future though. We’re excited about earning more of these scenes as we play through the expansion and hope you will be, too!

As a final point on the updates to the character screen, to make it easier for you to decide which character to play at any given moment, we have also added a bit more information about each character during character selection.

 

 


The Warbands system is an evergreen feature that we plan to continue expanding into the future. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback as we continue development on The War Within. Happy alting, and we’ll see you in Azeroth!

WoWCast Developer Chat: Go Into the War Within

Quote from: Blizzard

Join Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Associate Art Director Tina Wang as they sit down with Community Manager and host Bethany Stout to take you into The War Within™.

The alpha test is right around the corner and we look forward to moving into the next phase of development of The War Within with you.

Here’s a recap of some of the main features arriving with the expansion.


Defend Azeroth from the Shadows Below

Journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds filled with wonders and lurking perils, down to the dark depths of the nerubian empire, where the malicious Harbinger of the Void, Xal’atath, is gathering arachnid forces to bring Azeroth to its knees.

Freed long ago of the black blade that once bound her, she is now the Harbinger of a new era of the Void’s dark machinations. Her message is clear. The Black Empire has fallen. The Old Gods are dead and their ancient blood runs deep within the cracks of the world. We, the heroes of Azeroth destroyed them and the Harbinger watched all along. While the Black Empire has failed, Xal’atath seeks to set in motion the rise of a new dark legacy —one that knows our strengths and will seek to test them against a terrible power, the nerubians of Azj-Kahet.

Xal’atath has conscripted the nerubian queen, Ansurek, and offered her people a new future in which they would rise from their isolation and become a mighty kingdom once again. We will not find the nerubian soldiers of the Lich King here, but a mighty stronghold of nerubians as they once were—deadly survivors of the mythic wars that have played out repeatedly over thousands of years.

In return for their loyalty, Xal’atath has granted the nerubians the means of a dark evolution that will turn the nerubians into a new kind of ferocious and terrifying soldiers.


Our Heroes

Several of Azeroth’s greatest heroes will rise to the call of the Radiant Song, and many will face their own unique challenges along the way.

  • Anduin Wrynn: Having survived his ordeal with Domination, he will grapple with his relationship with the Holy Light that he no longer feels worthy of.
  • Thrall: He is seeking a connection to the visions spreading across the world and working to find his new place within the Horde.
  • Magni Bronzebeard: Long the Speaker of Azeroth, he will confront the heavy weight of that responsibility once and for all.
  • Alleria Windrunner: Her journey will be central to the events and themes of the War Within. She, as a void hunter, must use all of her capabilities to hunt down Xal’atath while being torn between her own nature and the maddening call of the Void to which she is attuned. Along this adventure she will have a unique rivalry with Xal’atath whose twists and turns will come to define the nature of this new conflict.

This chapter is only the beginning of the saga.


Khaz Algar- Designated Sector AR-934

Beneath the surface of Azeroth, an expansive world exists, fraught with danger and waiting to be explored.


The Zones of Khaz Algar

The Isle of Dorn: Discover the land of Khaz Algar, off the western shores of Pandaria and home to the Earthen. Their capital city, Dornogal, will become the new meeting ground for the Horde and Alliance.

The Ringing Deeps: This gigantic cavern serves as the home of the Machine Speakers, Earthen who maintain the gigantic Titan machines of old.

Hallowfall: Lit by a massive crystal at its center, this bright underground zone is home to the Arathi who are engaged in a continuing battle against the nerubians.

Azj-Kahet: The pinnacle of nerubian society where Xal’atath, Harbinger of the Void, has been gathering and mutating nerubian forces to create an unstoppable army.

For players who are concerned about entering into a space filled with spiders, there will be an arachnophobia filter that can be turned on which will convert spider creatures into crabs.


Meet the Earthen

We’ve met Titan-forged Earthen before in Ulduar and other places, but this society of Earthen has been isolated within Khaz Algar for a long while and have developed their own manners and customs. Visually, they are a bit larger, and gem encrusted.

It is up to the heroes of Azeroth to aid the Earthen and find a way to unite them once more and replenish their numbers.

Earthen as a New Allied Race

Earthen will also unlock as a playable race. Replenishing the culture’s dwindling numbers by either joining the Horde or the Alliance. Players will be able to choose either faction to begin their journey.

There are many customizations that will be coming for these Earthen including different gem encrustations, beards for all body types, skin colorizations, and more.


Dungeons

Similar to the launch of previous expansions, there will be 4 level-up dungeons and 4 maximum-level dungeons that are available in each of the four new zones.

Level-Up Dungeons

  • The Rookery
  • The Stonevault
  • Priory of the Sacred Flame
  • City of Threads

Maximum Level

  • Cinderbrew Meadery
  • Darkflame Cleft
  • The Dawnbreaker
  • Old City

If you don’t want to use the Dungeon Finder to take part in dungeons with other players, you can continue the campaign story with Follower Dungeons which will be available to play through in all level-up dungeons.


Nerub’ar Palace Raid Dungeon

The Nerub’ar Palace raid dungeon will offer eight boss encounters. Located in Azj-Kahet, it will result in the culmination of the story we see play out involving the machinations of the nerubian empire and Queen Ansurek’s collaboration with Xal’atath.

Players can also expect new tier rewards for their valiant efforts.


New Features

  • Delves: Deep beneath the surface lies treasure vaults waiting to be discovered. Explore these world instances solo or with up to four friends, along with an NPC companion, to defeat bosses and gain epic end-game loot.

Delves New Mechanical Mount Reward

Mix and match customizations to make your new mount your own.

  • Warbands: Expand the potential of your alternate characters with account-wide progression across your family of characters on your Battle.net account. Share your Warband Bank access, War Within Renown, achievements, collections, and more. Visit our latest article to learn more about Warbands.
  • Hero Talents: Rise to new heights of power with new Hero Talent trees. Each class specialization has access to two choices of self-contained Hero Talent trees inspired by iconic Warcraft universe archetypes. Revisit our previous Hero Talent previews to get a glimpse at what is in development.

 *Please note many of these trees have been updated since the original previews.


We look forward to hearing your ongoing thoughts and feedback as we continue development.

Sign up for The War Within test to be a part of the future of World of Warcraft.

Pre-Purchase the World of Warcraft®: The War Within™ 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition

Quote from: Blizzard

The Worldsoul Saga Begins Here!

World of Warcraft®: The War Within™ arrives this year1, and the wings of a grand new adventure will spread widely across the next three expansions.2 Be a part of the epic story that commemorates the first 20 years of World of Warcraft and sets new foundations for Azeroth’s future!2

The World of Warcraft: The War Within 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is now available for pre-purchase and comes with an array of rare and commemorative items to aid in your journey into the depths of Azeroth.

  • The Art of The War Within—Leaf through the visual evolution of The War Within expansion with this beautifully bound lexicon filled with exclusive art.
  • Collectible Pin—Featuring Thrall, Anduin, and Alleria primed for battle.
  • World of Warcraft 20th Anniversary Gryphon Rider Statue—Perched and ready to defend from above.

Pre-Purchase today!

The collector’s edition is available for pre-purchase exclusively on the Blizzard Gear Store. It includes everything in The War Within Epic Edition—an Enhanced Level 70 Character Boost, 1,000 Trader’s Tender4, 30 Days of Game Time, plus more!

Already pre-purchased an edition of The War Within? No problem! These three new commemorative collectibles can still be added to your trove. When you purchase the World of Warcraft: The War Within 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition, you’ll receive a Battle.net® balance reimbursement for your previous purchase to use in-game or on Battle.net.


1Available on or before December 31, 2024. Requires World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time.
2Future expansions not included in WoW®: The War Within™ purchase.
3Requires World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time. If you already have Dragonflight on your account, it will not be re-granted.
4An active World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time is required to acquire and use Trader’s Tender. Trader’s Tender does not expire regardless of Subscription or Game Time status.

Sign Up To Test The War Within

Quote from: Blizzard

Make an early descent into World of Warcraft®: The War Within™. You’ll journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds filled with hidden wonders, earn the trust of the new Earthen allied race, and face an ancient evil lurking in the darkness when you sign up for the beta!

Sign Up!


Getting Started

Join us in testing The War Within. Players who have opted in can be selected to be testers, and invitations will go out regularly throughout the test. If selected to participate in the beta test, your Battle.net account will already be flagged for access.

  • Make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.
  • Run the Battle.net® desktop app—it may need to update itself if you haven’t run it recently. If you don’t have the app installed, get started here.
  • Once Battle.net is installed and updated, select World of Warcraft from the list of games.
  • In the Game Version drop-down menu above the Play button, choose The War Within (listed under In Development) option, then click Install.
  • Allow installation to complete, click Play, and select any available Test Servers.
  • Create a new test character or use the character copy to import your existing Dragonflight character.
  • Enter the game and test the available content.

If you have issues installing and operating The War Within Beta, please check our Common Technical Issues and Solutions to begin troubleshooting.


The Worldsoul Saga™ Begins


Pre-Purchase World of Warcraft: The War Within

The wings of a grand new adventure spread widely across the next three expansions!* Be a part of the epic story that celebrates the first 20 years of World of Warcraft and sets new foundations for Azeroth’s future. Pre-purchase the Epic Edition of The War Within to dive into the expansion early with guaranteed beta and early (3 days) access.

Choose Your Edition

Base Edition Includes the World of Warcraft: The War Within pre-purchase, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight***, an Enhanced Level 70 Character Boost with upgraded gear, reputation progress, and more, to prepare you for your adventures in the depths of the world. Also includes 500 Trader’s Tender to use in the Trading Post ††

Heroic EditionIncludes everything in the Base Edition. Plus, you’ll receive the Algarian Stormrider mount with Dynamic Flying and access to special racecourses, and the Stormrider’s Attire Transmog set. The mount has four color variants, with a slew of additional customization options available. The Transmog set can be upgraded to the Thundering Stormrider’s Attire upon completing the special racecourses available with the Algarian Stormrider. Also includes an additional 250 Trader’s Tender (750 in total) to use in the Trading Post††.

Epic Edition

Includes everything in the Heroic Edition. Plus, you’ll have guaranteed beta access and early access (3 days) to The War Within. You’ll also receive 30 days of game time, Squally, the Storm Hatchling pet, Sandbox Storm Gryphon toy, and Deepdweller’s Earthen Hearthstone effect. Also includes an additional 250 Trader’s Tender (1000 in total) to use in the Trading Post††.

  Base Edition

 

Heroic Edition Epic Edition
World of Warcraft: The War Within available at launch** X X X
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight*** X X X
Enhanced Level 70 Character Boost X X X
Trader’s Tender 500 750 1000
Algarian Stormrider mount with dynamic flying, dozens of customization options, and access to special racecourses   X X
Upgradable Stormrider’s Attire Transmog set   X X
Beta Access to The War Within     X
3 Days Early Access to The War Within     X
30 Days of Game Time     X

 

Squally, the Storm Hatchling pet     X

 

Sandbox Storm Gryphon toy     X
Deepdweller’s Earthen Hearthstone effect     X

Pre-Purchase today!


As with previous development cycles, players will also have the opportunity to sign up to participate in The War Within beta test at a future point in time. Stay tuned to the official World of Warcraft site to learn when beta sign-ups begin.

Become a part of a thrilling new story 20 years in the making.


*Future expansions not included in World of Warcraft: The War Within purchase.
**Available on or before December 31, 2024.
***If you already have Dragonflight on your account, it will not be re-granted.
†Beta Access and Early Access dates subject to change.  Early Access duration is 3 days. Limited time only. Play time subject to possible outages and time zone differences. Certain endgame features, including Mythic dungeons and weekly quests, not available during Early Access. Click for more details.
††In-game items not available in WoW Classic games. Boost only usable on the WoW game account on which it was purchased or redeemed.

  • Upgrading to the Heroic or Epic Edition will not re-grant in-game items previously unlocked on your account.
  • Requires World of Warcraft, Internet connection, and Battle.net® Account and desktop app.
  • Requires World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time.