The – Season of the Championship will take us back to the vanilla era starting November 2021, but this time everything is different, faster, heavier! But also better?! We’ll tell you what to expect in detail in Classic Azeroth 2.0 and what differences there are from the first nostalgia trip.
Blizzard is working hard to create classic nostalgia content for World of Warcraft that could appeal to almost any type of player in some way. We have WoW Classic era realms stuck in Stage 6 forever and as exciting as yesterday’s cold coffee.
Then of course there is also Burning Crusade Classic, which should be coming to Phase 3 with the Black Temple and the battle for Mount Hyjal in the foreseeable future. Even without official announcement, a Wrath of the Lich King Classic is as safe as the dwarf in the tavern. And starting November 17th, those interested will be able to enjoy the first – Season of the championship, which will once again whip us through all vanilla content in the coming year, including numerous changes.
Player retention through – Season s
This article is supposed to be about the upcoming – Season , the headline has already spoiled it. WoW (buy now) , once a pioneer for an entire genre, is now following in the footsteps of other online games that have shown in recent years how it is possible to retain players over a very long period of time with comparatively little effort. We’re thinking of successful titles like Fortnite or the Diablo 3 – Season s.
Instead of completely new content, the fans are presented with already familiar challenges that have been slightly adapted and given a foreseeable end date to ensure a certain urgency. You don’t want to miss anything. In addition, this already gives the starting point for the next – Season . The marmot says hello every day!
In 10 months after Naxxramas
But how exactly should the first – Season of the championship for WoW Classic actually work? Well, we can basically expect the six phases that we already know from WoW Classic, just with some adjustments and a much faster release tempo. Specifically, the Blizzard developers want to bring a new phase about every two months, so that we will be back in Naxxramas in almost ten months and after a year of nostalgia drops 2.0 will be sucked.
The developers are making important adjustments so that players without a 24/7 leisure pass are not left behind after the first few meters when sprinting towards phase 6. Right at the forefront: You will receive 40 percent more experience points via quests in the – Season of championship. And even more bonus XP is available for dungeon and elite quests. If you already found the pimped level phase up to level 60 in Burning Crusade Classic fast, you should buckle up. The level climbs are just flying around your ears!
No power to the boosters
So, as efficient as the questing in the – Season of the Championship is, the dungeon boosters from the WoW Classic era will have little fun with their magicians. Briefly to classify: In WoW Classic, many players have at some point switched to having new twinks boosted by high-level magicians. Just park the budding Azeroth hero at the entrance of a dungeon and let the mage do the work. He then pulls together as many enemies as possible, bombs them away and the dungeon can be reset. New round, even more experience. In a very short time, players were able to raise several characters to level 60. Many magicians have earned stupid and stupid through their boosting service and the falling loot.
In the – Season of the Championship, Blizzard wants to stop this kind of leveling and gold farming. The goal is clear: the characters should level up in the open world and visit the different level dungeons with “peers”. In addition, it should no longer be so easy for mages to farm solo in certain dungeons.
Measure No. 1: Killed monsters bring almost no experience points in dungeons as soon as a high-level character is present.
Action – No. 2: Enemies in Maraudon and Stratholme now have protection effects from root and snare effects that activate after some time.
Action – No. 3 : The zombie trolls in Zul’Farrak now drop valuable loot noticeably less often. The loot was distributed to the other opponents in the dungeon, which cannot be farmed as efficiently.
Speaking of unwanted farming methods: Another problem with WoW Classic was the numerous rogue bots that did nothing else all day than empty the pockets of the dwarves from the Blackrock depths. The big plus point of this gold farm strategy: The pockets of the robbed fill up again automatically after a while, so that the bot users never have to reset the instance. The latter, in turn, was worth its weight in gold after Blizzard introduced a dungeon limit for WoW Classic to – we have to laugh – make it difficult for bots to farm gold in dungeons.
So that history doesn’t repeat itself in the – Season of the championship, the developers came up with something, namely a thief debuff. This comes into play whenever a rogue pickpocket about 10 times in a row in Blackrock Depths. The new debuff then ensures that all dwarves hide their remaining belongings for 30 minutes, so that the thief can only steal a gray item that is just worth a copper piece.
By the way, the virtual death can remove the debuff. But then you have to live with the almost three minutes running time back to the dungeon entrance. A claw, gain debuff, die, run back, revive cycle takes about five minutes and averages about 20 silver pieces. That’s not exactly the stuff gold dreams are made of.
Hardcore mode “light”
In the course of the Classic era, a separate hardcore community developed around various streamers. The challenge of this game variant: Raise a character to level 60 in WoW Classic without bless the age once. As soon as the spirit healer visit is due, the character will be deleted. Sounds tough and that’s exactly why it provides a completely new, ultra-exciting feel – especially when a quest leads you to a Murloc camp again. Aaaaugubugbugrguburgle!
Of course, Blizzard has also observed this trend and implemented a corresponding option in the – Season of the championship. Speak with the High Elf Wardens in Ironforge and Undercity, who wish to find those willing to bear the Soul of Iron. In the dialogue you can then confirm that you want to follow this iron path, which will bring you a corresponding buff and a special emote.
But the new hardcore mode for the championship – Season isn’t really hardcore. As soon as a character with the iron buff dies, his iron soul falls out of him. But he can revive himself normally. In this case, he is only relieved of the said buff and branded with the Tainted Soul debuff, which reduces all stats by 1 percent (does not stack with further deaths). With the guard NPCs just mentioned, you can even let yourself be relieved of the burden and continue playing the character as normal. lame!
Not lame at all: Some hardcore players not only want to level up to level 60 without visiting a spirit healer, but also want to defeat Ragnaros in the Molten Core . A stupid pull, once not running out of fire, once pulled aggro at the wrong moment and the character is deleted. This is hardcore! Then:
Molten Core 2.0
One of the biggest adjustments of the – Season of the Championship is in the raid area. In general, the powerful Classic-era world buffs don’t take effect in raid instances, and you can now apply as many debuffs as possible to enemies (instead of 16). This should please warlocks and shadow priests in particular, but also all other specializations that would have loved to have debuffs on their victims in Classic, but were not allowed to do so due to the restriction for the sake of raid DpS.
However, the Blizzard developers do not want to change anything about the class balancing, which could be greatly improved, which should lead to the old problems due to the significantly longer fights. All raid bosses of the first phase have about twice as many life points as in the original WoW Classic. Since all characters also cause half the damage due to a lack of world buffs, the bottom line is that the battles last almost four times as long.
In addition, Blizzard has noticeably expanded the mechanics of the bosses. For example, Lucifron and Gehennas are now accompanied by twice as many minions. Garr keeps spawning new magmakin adds that charge at a player and then explode (the explosion knocks back nearby players). Garr’s normal adds can also no longer be banned once Garr has 50 percent of his life points.
Baron Geddon now targets three players instead of one with his “You’re the Bomb!” attack. Each explosion and inferno leaves patches of fire (small and large) on the ground, forcing you to keep drawing Geddon. This mutates Geddon into perhaps the toughest boss in Molten Core.
When Shazzrah teleports, the boss leaves behind a reflection of himself that continuously casts Arcane Blast.
Golemagg’s adds are now constantly buffed, causing increased damage and hitting faster. The earthquake shakes the entire fight across the ground. So your healers have to be on the ball.
The Sulfuron Herald now shares its health pool with all of its minions. Servants and bosses can also inspire each other if they stand too close to each other, and the inspiration buff has been strengthened. All servants and the boss must therefore be tanked at a sufficient distance from each other.
Majordomo Elite Flame Wardens now have a Fireball Volley. After two dead minions, the priests are immune to crowd control effects. No problem, this fight is still quite easy. And Ragnaros definitely dives as soon as he has 50 percent life points. Another Sons phase then comes three minutes after the end of the first. Additionally, after this first phase, Sons will spawn in random locations throughout the fight, intervening in the fight.
Onyxia also gets an upgrade: If you pull the dragon lady, two black dragons land at the same time, which you also have to take care of. And when Onyxia is in the air, she periodically casts her Fireball on random players, but it now has a much longer range and disorients those hit. Doubly mean when all players try to avoid breathing…
Clothes make heroes
In fact, the raid tests on the beta servers already showed that the new Molten Core in particular is no picnic. However, the increased difficulty could be diluted by further adjustments by the developers. In phase 1 you have access to dozens of strong items that were not available in WoW Classic so early. For example, all Dire Maul loot is available to you, and with it the associated recipes, class trinkets and tomes.
You can also earn the tier 0.5 class sets via a long quest line, which for some classes (rogue!) are better than drops from Molten Core. In order for you to be able to complete the quest chain at all, the Twilight’s Hammer camp in Silithus is available to summon elemental templars and dukes. All other activities related to Ahn’Qiraj from Silithus in general and Cenarion Hold in particular will only be available at a later phase.
Also available from launch are the class quests for level 50 characters. Dungeons will use the adjusted loot from Phase 5, and with a few exceptions (Gaiters of the Titans!), the quartermaster offerings and loot rates as of patch 1.12 will apply. Add to that the fact that the honor system and all battlegrounds are available at launch (and with them the reputation and rank items to match), you can really gear up your characters without even setting foot in a raid instance. And yes, the miserable grind for the rank 14 weapons should also be faster in view of the shorter duration of the phases.
Small but fine adjustments
We’ve left out some adjustments for the – Season of the Championship. If you liked the original Alterac Valley with the numerous NPC guards, you should now get your money’s worth. Access to valuable raw materials has also been adjusted. For example, you can get Black Lotus from high-level herbs with a bit of luck, similar to the Fel Lotus in TBC. Elemental fire, elemental earth and elemental water should also have increased drop chances. In general, there should be more herb and ore deposits in the open world.
Blizzard continues to reduce the cost of learning the riding skills and the level 40 mount. The warrior trinket Diamond Flask will be noticeably weakened . And Dire Maul North’s Gordok Tribute Box can no longer be looted by players who weren’t in the fight when King Gordok died. Finally, you can use Gathering Stones to summon party members. Warlocks rejoice.
Our first conclusion about the SdM
As much fun as we had in WoW Classic, the thought of re-enacting this era so early does not bother us. From our point of view, the – Season of the championship comes much too early. In addition, Blizzard simply changes too little from our point of view. Above all, class balancing remains a huge construction site. Due to the significantly longer fights, all the “meme specs” with mana problems now have an even lower raison d’être. At the same time, warriors and rogues should continue to dominate any DpS stat even without world buff scaling. Boring!
We would have found it much more exciting to fight alongside Vengeance Paladins, Elemental Shamans and Balance Druids, who can actually keep up thanks to minor adjustments. With Paladins and Shamans for Horde and Alliance. And with one or the other completely new challenge for the endgame. With a package like that, we couldn’t have said no.
What about Wrath of the Lich King Classic?
There is still no official announcement for Wrath of the Lich King Classic. But we are very sure that Blizzard will submit exactly this announcement in the next few months. Because they have always emphasized that if Classic is a success and people want more, then they are open to everything. And yes: Classic and TBC Classic are a success, and WotLK was the WoW expansion with the most paying customers (12+ million subscribers).
Blizzard won’t be missing out on this workhorse with the Lich King at the forefront. Especially since they are now even fulfilling wishes from the classic community, which were requested much less frequently – such as era realms for classic enthusiasts or the – Season of the championship for all – Season al short-time workers.
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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