Last Week in WoW: 8.1 Arrives Dec. 11, Dazar’alor Raid Opens Jan. 22, More Abilities Removed from GCD, WoW Classic on Mounts, and More

Prepare for Tides of Vengeance by learning more about the new content ahead including a new Warfront — Battle for Darkshore, new dwarf and blood elf Heritage armor, Faction Assaults, and more.

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Battle of Dazar’alor Opens January 22

For ages untold, Dazar’alor has stood at the center of the great and powerful Zandalari empire. Its guards have thwarted numerous attempts on King Rastakhan’s life, and it has endured trials both ancient and new. But as war reaches the shores of Zuldazar, the Alliance embarks on a daring gambit to besiege the golden pyramid and sever the Zandalari’s bond to the Horde.

Raid Unlock Schedule

• January 22 — Normal and Heroic Difficulties
• January 29 — Mythic and Raid Finder Wing 1
• February 12 — Raid Finder Wing 2
• February 26 — Raid Finder Wing 3

When Tides of Vengeance goes live, Darkshore will start in the hands of the Forsaken and the Horde—but it won’t be long before the Alliance makes its first strike.

We mentioned that in the preview that just went up today, is there something else that is causing confusion? Don’t want our messages to be getting crossed somewhere.

Immediately after the Tides of Vengeance update goes live with scheduled maintenance in each region, you’ll now be able to target specific kinds of Azerite armor by earning Titan Residuum, which can be used to purchase Azerite armor from everyone’s favorite purveyor of exquisite furnishings: Thaumaturge Vashreen, who can be found alongside his fellow ethereals in either Boralus or Dazar’alor.

In the weekly cache, you’ll now receive an amount of Titan Residuum in addition to your weekly item. Completing higher-level Keystones will award greater amounts of Titan Residuum from your weekly cache. Scrapping or disenchanting new epic-quality Azerite gear obtained in Tides of Vengeance (from any source) also provides Titan Residuum, with more powerful items yielding more Residuum.

After the update goes live, your weekly cache will contain Titan Residuum, and will not have a chance to contain a piece of Azerite Armor. We suggest you complete at least one Mythic Keystone dungeon before the update to make sure that you earn Titan Residuum when you open your cache after the update.

There isn’t a cap on how much Titan Residuum you can hold, and we do not plan to reset Titan Residuum at the start of Season 2. When Season 2 begins, the vendor will offer higher item-level pieces (iLvl 400 or 415) at significantly higher costs than the Season 1 items. Also at that time, the weekly Mythic Keystone cache will begin rewarding proportionally more Residuum, and new iLvl 400+ Azerite armor will yield more Residuum when scrapped or disenchanted.

See you in the dungeons!

This is something that is still happening.

Here is the list I have so far of abilities that are for sure coming off the GCD:

Havoc – Vengeful Retreat
All Druids – Wild Charge
Arms – Charge
Fury – Charge
Protection Warrior – Ignore Pain
Protection Warrior – Intercept
Protection Warrior (PvP) – Dragon Charge
Survival – Harpoon

Well that’s nice I guess, what about all the other categories?

This is just what we have confirmed so far. There could potentially be more added to the list, but I personally just don’t know of any others yet.

We’d love to hear from you guys on more examples of abilities that you feel should be off the GCD and why.

In Tides of Vengeance, in addition to two new Island Expeditions, we’re making a number of adjustments and improvements to Islands. One of those changes will alter how various cosmetic rewards are determined, and we’d like to explain that further, as we promised here: https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/status/1065080683058487297 973

Currently in Battle for Azeroth, Island Expeditions have a chance to reward cosmetic items based on which type of creatures you and your team defeated. For example, if the island theme of the week was Hozen, there’s a chance to receive one of the Banana toys. If the invaders were Nerubian, you could have a chance to receive the Voru’kar Leecher companion pet (among other things). They way this has worked is by means of a hidden scorecard that counted your group’s efforts against anything on the island that was part of the invaders’ ecology. So if anyone in the group earned some Azerite from killing invaders or mining Azerite near the invaders, everyone in the group had a chance at the cosmetic rewards. That chance grew based on how much invaders’ Azerite was obtained, and was also a higher chance in Heroic and even higher in Mythic difficulty Islands. We set the maximum chance you could earn at a reasonable threshold, in the hopes that players wouldn’t feel that they needed to only kill invaders and not complete the islands in a natural way.

Of course, that’s not how it worked out. Confusion around the best way to get cosmetics led to a divergence in playstyles, with some players wishing to focus exclusively on hunting specific creatures, while others wished to win the island efficiently to get Azerite. This caused a significant amount of tension between players who had differing goals.

In Tides of Vengeance, all players on an Expedition will have a chance to receive cosmetic rewards based on the island’s inhabitants, rather than which enemies were specifically defeated. That chance will again be higher on higher difficulties, but there will be no need to strategize around invaders. The most efficient way to receive cosmetic rewards will be whatever tactics cause you to complete the Island quickly, on the highest difficulty that you’re comfortable.

Thanks to everyone who has stormed our high seas with feedback on this. We really appreciate it.

I can understand them wanting players to figure things out on their own, but once they saw the friction being caused once players started to split on how to complete the islands, blizzard should’ve been much quicker in addressing this issue.

The new fix will stop people from basically competing against each other when it is supposed to be a team effort, but I’m not sure it will actually be better. If you are looking for a particular item, pet, or mount and now it could drop from anything, it seems like your odds of getting that one thing you are after will actually be worse than it is now and that is saying something since the drop rates are already terrible.

There can be some fun when things are a bit more mysterious but we agree that we didn’t hit that mark exactly and so we are making some changes. As much as we’d like to be able to solve problems right away, sometimes we need to review what people are saying, compare to how they are playing, and from there we can make more informed decisions on changes.

Obviously we hope it feels like an improvement, especially for the collectors out there but as usual, we will then see how these play out and go from there. We do appreciate the feedback!

Maybe it’s just me but I have a hard time believing many people find it fun that something like this is “mysterious”. You guys are just really bad at communication, that’s what this boils down to. lol

We can do better at communicating and are actively discussing that topic, but I wouldn’t expect us to lay out heavy details on every single system. There is fun in exploring and learning different aspects of the game and we don’t want to make the whole experience a spreadsheet. We missed the mark here and are making changes, simple as that.

See, I can appreciate what you were going for. We were all hoping for something mysterious and open-ended to begin with. The problem was that it came wrapped in a race that punished you for actually exploring, or really doing anything other than zooming between blue diamonds on your map.

I appreciate your understanding! I agree with you and in how it didn’t pan out how we’d hoped which is why we are making some changes.

Mounts and companions you get in classic SHOULD NOT be usable across multiple characters on the same classic account, however, you should be able to have these rewards in retail. This will increase the longevity of classic.

While I can fully understand the argument for “people will just play classic for the achievements/mounts/companions instead of classic itself and the people who want to play” that is not in and of itself a bad thing. Some people only still play retail for mounts/companies/appearances such as me. While I would be playing classic for the gameplay, getting things I can use on live as well would be an added bonus and would encourage me to use the servers more.

I can understand the concerns for a slippery slope, which is why I think they should only, solely, and be nothing other than one way. Classic appearances, mounts, companies -> retail.

Unique rewards might be something to consider, such as special sets, pets, or mounts for completing raids and dedicating time in classic. Someone who only wants the rewards and wants the single player experience won’t be able to get those rewards and will be forced to immerse themselves in the community if they do, similarly to how if you wanted to raid you had to immerse yourself in the community. Except now you have raiding and something you want in retail. This will help to solve the problem that’s in the community right now of silence and single player experiences with other people around by reminding them what its like to be part of a realm-wide community in WoW.

Like it was stated at BlizzCon there will be no crossover in rewards between Retail WoW and Classic WoW. I don’t think there is any need to change that stance but I appreciate the post OP.

I think its fair to ask for an opportunity to earn those rewards again however I don’t think it should come at the cost of diminishing the rewards that players earned years ago and cherish. I think the opportunity to earn and have them exclusively on Classic is fair because its staying on Classic itself. I think any more crossover than that could be damaging and lessen the value or prestige of those rewards.

It’s a pretty solid philosophy at the moment that there will be zero crossover of rewards.

What about the original Collector’s Edition pets? Surely that’s a different case. Nothing else is like that and it would be a cool little tip of the hat to those who got the original collector’s edition (which isn’t many people).

This is something interesting but nothing decided or concrete on it.

I would try to seperate in your mind retail and classic. Something you buy on retail shouldn’t give you something in Classic, or vice versa. The philosophy is pretty rock solid that they are separate gameplay wise. If you obtained the original CE pets you used those/can still use those in the live game you obtained it for.

It is an interesting thought though, that to some that did have it, that was a part of their classic experience. It’s likely we won’t implement something that ties into the existing things you own on the live game, but maybe reoffer them since Classic is it’s own thing. Before the fury of that statement sinks in, I’m not saying that will happen at all (there literally hasn’t even been a discussion of it), just sharing my thoughts on a solution to that problem that I could see.

This also could be an exception where we somehow grant them for original CE owners. No idea. Interesting thing to think about though. I’ll mention it though that you guys are asking about the original CE pets for original CE owners.

but token purchases in retail are going to have an effect on Classic.

Eh that’s not really the same thing but I get your point. I’d argue that they’re still not connected even with that. Just having a subscription allows you to play the game. It doesn’t get you anything past that.

If things were sold like pets or mounts then you could make that argument, but I don’t think it has any merit when you’re just talking about the sub.

Literally one of two reasons I’d ever consider doing Classic just shot down instantly. You know that thing that’s used to keep people playing? You guys are just throwing it away. Seems very silly.

Sorry you feel this way but if that’s what you were hoping for then it sounds like Classic isn’t really for you. That’s okay though. I still encourage you to try it though!

It’s not throwing it away, its giving the community that wants Classic the most authentic experience we can provide. Adding any sort of reward carry over in either direction isn’t authentic and defeats the point.

Classic is there for those that will want to play it. Not just for rewards on their BfA license, which would be devaluing to those that earned those rewards that are no longer obtainable, and vice versa would be introducing things that were never there in Classic to begin with. Neither of which we want to do in this case. We know the community that has been asking for Classic for years doesn’t want either of those scenarios, and neither do we.

“We” as in Blizzard developers? Or “We” as in the Activision-Blizzard accountants responsible for making financially viable decisions?

I speak for World of Warcraft. When I saw “we” I mean the WoW team.

Refer to my post above- I really would play Classic, for years, if there was a guaranteed way to get the Black Scarab mount as an end goal. I wouldn’t be able to play BfA for years, nor would I want to.

I would imagine you could earn that in Classic. It would stay in Classic though given what we’ve stated already about it.

No, it really doesn’t. Blizzard said they could make an EXCEPTION.

Honestly, I would have the expectation that you won’t get them in Classic just because you already own them. That license was to have them in the current game, which you still do.

I can’t 100% say it will or won’t but it’s less than likely, meaning it’s not really something to argue about on the forums.

Assume Retail and Classic are two separate games entirely (apart from the sub granting access to both) unless we announce otherwise.

Good to know that classic server’s are going to be dead, with no reward linking and little incentive to actually play classic.

Then you don’t want Classic. Classic itself is the incentive.

If you don’t entice casual or reward driven players to bolster the numbers on classic servers, it’s going to fail.

There is no measure of success we’re looking for in Classic. It’s us trying to give that section of the community what they’ve been asking for for more than a decade and making it as authentic as we can possibly make it

If a million people play Classic or a thousand people play Classic that’s awesome, we’re just happy that we’re giving them the home they’ve been asking to return to. The existing rewards will should still exist but they will of course stay on Classic. They are two separate experiences.

The ones that swear up and down that Nostalrius had 10X the active users of live WoW

Well you can simply ask them to present proof of this, which they’d have to make up numbers for, or take painfully wrong guesses about WoW’s active numbers. Spoiler: I’ve know both numbers, that statement couldn’t be more wrong.

Not trying to call you a liar, but with how the CMs have treated the player base in the past and how they currently treat the playerbase, no one is going to just take your word for it.

Pretty sure I’ve never once lied to any of you. Nor would I do it if asked. I can’t speak for other CMs in the past, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never done it and I’ve never heard of them doing it either.

I appreciate your feedback about the live game but that’s something more fitting for the General Discussion threads. I share your complaint about the advertisement in group finder though.

To follow up, I can say I’ve never seen a lie from you personally, but sometimes the way you post and others have posted in the past come off as very rude for a person in the position you have.

That’s probably me not helping myself in that avenue. I’ve never once actually felt anything rude in any posts that I’ve written. I actually am internally just giddy every single time I write and see the blue text. It makes me endless happy that I grew up seeing it and now I do it. So just know that I’m aware of that and I’m sorry if that comes across and I actually love this and love that you all share your passion with me on a daily basis.

And it certainly is frustrating seeing posts in threads that don’t warrant a blue post then never seeing blues where they’re most needed.

A lot of times that’s just the unfortunate reality of the process. I just don’t have things ready to communicate but I need to at least try to show you guys that I’m active and reading what you say. This is an area we always need to improve in both personally and as an organization.