Every time the announcement of a new expansion of World of Warcraft Classic comes with a lot of hype. For Wrath Classic especially, what grabbed even more attention was the initial pre-patch activities.
As the official announcement has already been made and the release of the Wrath of the Lich King Classic set, players are scrambling to get enough WoW WotLK Classic gold, gear, and many events leading up to the new expansion.
Also, we listen to an endless stream of news that we'll be getting more and more changes. Truly, out of all of the classics so far, Wrath Classic is going to have the most changes due to the addition and removal of features here and there. In addition to some of the changes we already knew about in the beginning, we look to point out some specific changes in this piece. Some of these changes are completely new, and some are just quality-of-life changes. So grab a cup of coffee and read on.
Trial of the Crusader Items Nerfed
Initially, the Trial of the Crusader items was so much better than Ulduar items that people pretty much stopped running Ulduar and kept spamming Trial of the Crusader instead. This led to issues as many people just do it every time, with 10 men, 25 men, heroic or normal, because the items are really good.
Ways that Blizzard is looking to fix this issue is potentially nerfing the Trial of the Crusader items or even possibly buffing those Ulduar items. They might create slight buffs for the normal mode and significant buffs for the hard mode. This is a great idea to make Ulduar more enticing to players.
Wintergrasp - A Cross-Server Battleground
Wintergrasp will now be a giant cross-server battleground. There will still be 120 people per faction for a total of 240 people in the instanced battleground.
The fix will also provide a solution to imbalances. Servers these days are either 99% alliance or 99% horde, which always leads to one-sided faction-dominant servers. The truth is Wintergrasp just won't work on these servers. It will instead be a giant battleground, and you'll only be able to queue for it once every couple of hours, just like it was before.
Another problem of Wintergrasp that Blizzard is looking to fix is creating a solution for factions that lose. The idea was to add a back door for the faction that loses so that they can access the Vault of Archavon, a raid only accessible to the winning faction in Wintergrasp. This is a great fix, as when you're locked out initially, you won't be able to get your weekly done.
Now, if anyone in the realm wins, control of their instanced version of Wintergrasp goes to them, but that instanced version will also be available to both factions.
Raid Lockout Changes
Another big change is that Blizzard is changing how Raid Lockout works in Wrath of the Lich King Classic. Now you have to choose between normal or heroic. This only impacts normal 10 men TOC, heroic 10 men TOC, normal 25 men TOC and heroic 25 men TOC.
Back in the day, if you wanted, you could do TOC 4 times effectively every week, twice on 19 men and twice on 25 men, normal or heroic for both options. Now, it has been cut down to twice a week, and you'll have to choose between normal and heroic. Normally, it has cut TOC volume in half, and in a way, Blizzard is trying to apply ICC difficulty to TOC.
Also, you won't be able to wear a heroic version and a normal version of a trinket as they'll share that unique equipment category.
Emblem Consolidation
Next, Blizzard will change the way emblems work in Wrath of the Lich King Classic. In the original Wrath, there were 4 emblems from different raid tiers at the end of the day. The complexities of converting and turning one emblem into another have led to the change. There will only be two emblems available in Wrath Classic, the Emblem of Valor and the Emblem of Heroism. The emblem of Valor will drop from all raids.
No More Arena Team
For PVP in Wrath Classic, there will no longer be arena teams. One of the huge complaints from PVP arena players all through TBC was that arena teams make playing with your friends harder. To play with friends, they'd have to leave one team for the other every time. It was clunky for arena players with lots of friends.
In Wrath Classic, there won't be arena teams, which is a huge quality of life boost as players can play with whomever they want easily.
Also, arena titles and the ability to get arena rating requirements will be maintained for 2v2 arenas. So if you have a higher arena rating in 2v2, you can get a challenger, rival, duelist, or gladiator title if you are good enough. You can also use your rating to buy some of the upper echelon arena gear, which was how it was in the first two arena seasons in the old Wrath before it was removed for the last two seasons.
Racial Changes
Race and faction changes will be added later in Wrath Classic. In the old Wrath, you could perform a racial change at some point, but not a faction change. Now in Classic Wrath, you'll be able to do both at one point.
Here are some notable tuning for all races across Wrath Classic, especially for PVP:
Humans will receive a new passive called Perception to increase Stealth Detection. They will also receive Every Man for Himself, which removes all movement-impairing effects and effects that cause you to lose control of your character. This also shares a cooldown with the PVP trinket. One benefit is humans can now wear 2 DPS trinkets.
Dwarves and Undeads, with their racial Will of the Forsaken and Stoneform, now automatically remove the effects on you (poison, fear, disease, etc.).
Night elf Shadow meld will be usable in combat to drop out and go undetected.
Draenei's Gift of the Naaru is now instant.
The Orc's Hardiness has changed from resistance to reducing stun duration.
Blood Fury no longer has healing reduction applied to it.
Da Voodoo Shuffle is a new passive that Trolls get, which reduces the duration of all impairing effects by 15%. Also, the Berserking trait now gives a 20% flat bonus to attack speed and cast speed.
Blood elves' Arcane Torrent is being changed. Depending on your class, it no longer needs mana tap and gives you a flat amount of resources.
Naxxramas Is Getting Buffer
Naxx is getting buffed as it was relatively too easy a raid. Now that it's getting buffed, we get harder bosses with increased health and damage. Blizzard felt they overdid it initially, and people didn't have fun.
XP Locking
In the old Wrath of the Lich King, if you toggle off your XP and are ready to twink, you'll be in a separate twink-only battleground system. This isn't the case anymore in Wrath Classic, as players looking to have fun, dominate and do low-level PVP can now do that.
Joyous Journeys
This is one of the biggest changes added already by Blizzard. All XP gains increased by 50%. As we are entering an era of accessibility and convenience, it's important to have this. Blizzard themselves said this is in line with one of the 5 pillars of their philosophy for the changes they are trying to make, which means easier to play and level.
For someone that doesn't have a lot of time to play but still would love to be in the World of Warcraft, Joyous Journey is a solution for casual players. In Wrath, there is already a massive level squish from Outland. The 60 - 70 XP required has been reduced. And on top of that, joyous journey gives you an additional 50%.
These are some of the biggest coming in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and we made this update for you if you've not been following along. Something all of these tell us is that Wrath Classic is going to be a fun new experience. Thankfully, we didn't get unnecessary graphical remakes from Blizzard. We know we will surely enjoy leveling, farming gold, and killing monsters when Wrath Classic launches. We'll continue to give you updates and guides to carry you along on our journey to Northrend.