Before the start of the 4th Season, Blizzard released a small content patch — 9.2.5. This patch will go down in WoW history as the ancestor of a new era of cross-faction games first of all. In addition, the patch brought us plot development, prepared us for the new Dragonflight addon, made some changes to the balance of classes and raids, and… presented the new HD cursor!
Cross-faction gameplay in World of Warcraft
No war in Warcraft. Sounds counterintuitive, but this change is long overdue. Ever since the Legion, it seemed strange that having a common powerful enemy, the Alliance and the Horde could not oppose the demons as a united front. And even if the Jailer did not look like a colorful villain, it was The One who managed to unite the factions that had been warring for dozens of years.
Now small squabbles between the Alliance and the Horde still take place. But dungeons, raids, rating arenas, battlegrounds, and even Torghast the Alliance and the Horde heroes can go together (if the player is on their BattleTag friend list or «real name» in Battle.net).
But how to communicate with an ally from another faction? Fly to Dalaran for Elixir of tongues? Of course not! To understand a member of another faction, you only need to be part of the same group or raid.
The question of cross-factional guilds is uncertain. On the one hand, Blizzard tells us that you can only recruit players from one faction in a guild. But there is a little trick that will allow you to create a cross-faction guild, and we talked about it in our FB group. The fact that such a guild is Possible suggests that Blizzard is thinking in this direction too.
Plot and quests in Shadowlands 9.2.5
You will see many plot twists as the game progresses, so we will not make spoilers. But long story short, in 9.2.5 we will take a closer look at the history of Calia Menethil and the Forsaken sect, visit Sylvanas in her punishment in the Maw, and find out the thoughts and plans for the future of Khadgar, Jaina, and Bolvar Fordragon. However, in this topic, we want to draw your attention only to what you might accidentally miss.
In Patch 9.2.5, Blood Elves will get a special questline that tells about the Scourge’s invasion of the Ghostlands. This questline is only for level 60 Blood Elves with Silvermoon Exalted, and it rewards players with a new Hawkstrider mount, Blood Knight cosmetic armor set, and Veil-Touched Ranseur racial weapon.
This quest starts with Lady Liadrin in Oribos near the portal to Orgrimmar. Along the way, the player will have to fight against the forces of the Scourge, and in the finale, you will receive a coveted mount, and paladins in addition to the mount will receive a blood knight cosmetic plate set.
Another race that got lucky in this patch is the Dark Iron Dwarves. This is an allied race, so not everyone has it. Our leveling service will help you solve this problem, we can upgrade any character of your choice and even complete this and any other quest for you.
The questline for dwarves is quite small, but the rewards for completing it are very, very significant. All tasks begin on the territory of Shadowforge, where, in fact, they end. There are 5 tasks in total and from the conditions of them only the presence of a Dark Iron Dwarf of level 50.
After completing the entire chain, you will receive Arsenal: Lavaforge Armaments as a reward, which unlocks the appearance of traditional weapons – a shield, a one-handed ax, and a staff that looks like a two-handed hammer.
You will also receive a unique mount Grimhowl’s Face Ax – a bloodhound mount in Dark Iron armor.
PvP and PvE novelties in Shadowlands 9.2.5
This year, Blizzard has decided not to wait until 100 guilds from each faction have defeated a Mythic Jailer. It would take too long (only 8 Alliance guilds managed to do this). Therefore, with update 9.2.5, Mythic raiding mode is available for cross-server groups. This means that the price of a Mythic raid on our website is going down, but you still can get a rare achievement!
Also, the new patch will add a Zereth Mortis located arena that should have pleased us since 9.2.0.
Its decorations match the theme of this location and the Eternals, and have its own interesting features:
- The Enigma Arena is a regular playground as we like. The main part of it is outlined by a large hexagon with small hexagons (like honeycombs) inside;
- In the arena, there are several large columns of 5 cells – either 3 at the edges, or 2 near the center, as well as several small columns of 1 cell – 2 near the center;
- Also in the center of the arena is a hexagonal “button”. When a character is on it, it activates and changes the current location of the columns to another one. The change of columns does not occur immediately, but some time after activation. After that, the button itself remains inactive for some time after;
- The places where columns are about to rise are highlighted. If a character is on them, he will be moved to the side. It is also impossible to climb an already standing column;
- Along the edges, as in other arenas, purple crystals periodically appear to detect invisibility.
Other changes
The developers are waiting for the return of the players, and to make it easier for them, they have accelerated the Renown leveling. Now you can see several changes:
- The Broker Mark of Distinction will increase the Renown of your currently active Covenant up to 60 instead of 40;
- Renown catch-up is accelerated up to Renown 60 level, instead of 48;
- Mythic and Mythic+ dungeons, Torghast Layers 9-16, Defeating a Shadowlands raid bosses, and Winning a Rated Battlegrounds will give you a guaranteed 1 Renown level.
In addition, starting with patch 9.2.5, all quarters of Torghast will be open at once.
And even if there are fewer and fewer reasons for an excursion to the damned tower, however, it will become much easier to loot a specific legendary. But if you surely don’t want to return to this tower by yourself, you can find various offers with Torghast challenges from our boosters.
The funny news was the addition of the HD cursor to WoW. The new cursor is part of the UI improvements we will see in Dragonflight. But the joke is that Blizzard only changed the image of the plate gauntlet. Everything else, such as the letter when hovering over the mailbox or the exclamation point, remained the same.
Fortunately, everybody loves pixel art, isn’t right?
Shadowlands Season 4
You can read about all Season 4 novelties and changes in our detailed review, but let’s highlight the main points.
The changes above are preparing us for Season 4 that started August 2. As always happens with the new season, we got an increase in item levels up to 311, the reset of ratings, and the beginning of a new season of competition in PvP and PvE.
The new season doesn’t bring a new raid. But players get another chance to enjoy Castle Nathria and Sanctum of Domination with a brand-new raid affix called Fated. This changes increases the level of difficulty and quality of rewards, bringing back the relevance of all three raids including Sepulcher of the First Ones. However, there will be no Hall of Fame for Season 4. Blizzard is not looking to position this as a competitive event.
Dungeons also do not remain unchanged. In addition to the new affix Shrouded the rotation of dungeons also changed. After voting by the community, the final list of dungeons looks like this:
- Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
- Tazavesh: So’leah’s Gambit
- Operation Mechagon: Junkyard
- Operation Mechagon: Workshop
- Return to Karazhan: Lower
- Return to Karazhan: Upper
- Grimrail Depot
- Iron Docks
Due to the abundance of old forgotten dungeons, the new affix doesn’t have a big impact on the gameplay. There are will be just a basic bonus to the secondary characteristics.
PvP in Season 4 will not undergo any significant changes. The PvP season itself is called Eternal, and the title Eternal Gladiator.
What do you need to do before the start of Season 4?
Obviously, the start of a new season makes it impossible to get some limited achievements, titles, and mounts from last season.
Before the start of Season 4, you can have time to get the Ahead of the Curve: The Jailer achievement for Heroic and Cutting Edge: The Jailer for Mythic difficulty. And if you play as an Alliance, you can even get into the leaderboard!
Mythic+ dungeon conquerors will be able to get a total of three rewards: two titles and a traditional mount. Achieving 1,850+ points of Mythic+ rating will reward the title “the Cryptic”, 2,500+ points will award a red-colored death elemental mount Wastewarped Deathwalker, and 3,000+ points will award the title “the Cryptic Hero”.
Among the Arena Season 3 rewards, you can still get the title of Space Gladiator, a new weapon illusion. And of course special mount – Cosmic Gladiator’s Soul Eater.
Don’t forget, that we can help you with all these challenges. Just choose the type of content you are interested in most of all from our hottest offers.
