Spooncraft

Here’s the most updated list of information that was disclosed at the WWI about raiding and dungeons in the coming expansion. For the sake of keeping things cropped on the front page I have placed pretty much all the written information after the break. You might see some things repeated moreover but different sources provided different info. Some stuff was left out and such. So if you see the same thing twice by all means, don’t freak on me for bad typing. It’s on purpose.

Raids & Dungeons

• There will be 8 Level Up dungeons and 4 Max Level Dungeons.
• There will be a 10/25 players mode for each raid dungeon.
• Heroic dungeons will be made slightly easier, at least devs are going to make sure you don’t necessarily need a specific class like a prot warrior to complete it.
• Some dungeons were too long in Burning Crusade and completing a dungeon shouldn’t take more than an hour.
• Quests didn’t feel as connected as they should and dungeons quest should implicate a bit more in the background of the instance. Killing bosses might even have an impact on the world.
• Gun’drak will be a level 80 Dungeon and the last objective of a huge questline going through the whole zone (Zul’Drak).
• Black Temple and Hyjal Summit were released too early, on a second thought it would probably have been better to release Zul’aman first instead of postponing it for more than a year. Developpers are going to make sure that Arthas is and feels like the final boss of Wrath of the Lich King.
• Attunements to enter Heroic instances will be removed.

Reputation

• You will be able to earn reputation toward a specific faction by becoming its “champion”, for example by wearing a Cenarion Circle tabard while running Hellfire Ramparts you will earn reputation for both Honor Hold/Thrallmar and Cenarion Circle. Obviously tabards reputation requirements will be changed to something like friendly/honored.

Itemization

• More PvP gear will be delivered through the PvE system, it won’t be the best gear but it will give you a chance to get started.
• More PvP gear will be added as reputation rewards.
• More items will drop from 25-man dungeons.
• Items will be changed by removing “unecessary” stats to make them usable by more classes at the same time.
• More recipes and plans will be added to the game, with a better representation between professions. Even if some recipes will still drop from a specific boss in a dungeon like in BC, devs will try to make some of them easier to obtain.

Death Knights

• Death Knights will be able to tank 5-man, heroics, raids dungeons, but in a “different” way. It will also fill a few more roles and won’t be here just to tank.

The Oculus (LVL 80 Dungeon - Borean Tundra)

• The dungeon will allow players to use flying mounts, parts of the dungeon will allow you to get a drake and combat while mounted by using different abilities of each drake. Some drakes will be able to tank, some will heal, others will DPS.

Halls of Stone (LVL 77-79 - Storm Peaks)

• Halls of Stone will be located in Ulduar in Storm Peaks.
• All the dungeons in Ulduar were built by Titans and will really feel huge, however devs didn’t want players to need a mount or anything like that to go through it and tried to keep it small.
• The storyline of Uldaman will continue in Ulduar.

Caverns of Time: Stratholme (LVL 80 - Tanaris)

• The faction requirement on the Caverns of Time teleport will be removed.
• The dungeon is fully scripted just like Old Hillsbrad. There are a couple of timed encounters, it will be non-linear and you will be able to choose your encounters.
• Players will be fighting alongside Prince Arthas before he falls to the Lich King.
• The same voice acting as Warcraft 3 will be used in the instance. (Jaina / Arthas / Uthar)
• The Infinite Dragonflight storyline will continue here.

Q&A

• Whenever it’s possible, devs would prefer to deliver legendary items through quests like Atiesh instead of having them just drop from Bosses.
• There won’t be any attunement for heroic or entry level raid instances. The remaining attunements will be very simple to understand.
• “Wipe management” is a very important part of the design and developpers are doing their best to make sure that corpse run in dungeons aren’t too long.
• Titles might be added for kills, entering a specific area, etc …
• More tokens will drop to minimize the impact of randomization, sometimes increasing the amount of items dropping from a boss isn’t enough.
• Dungeons aren’t going to be overall easier, but will be more accessible. Bosses might not be easier to kill but will be easier to understand for new players.

What’s new in WotLK?

• 10/25 player raids for every single raidzone.
• heroics will be featured in WotLK
• more non-linear content, more than 1 way to get to a boss and defeat it (example: Occulus)
• Spirit Shard reward system for every dungeon connected to Wintergrasp. Whoever controls wintergraps will add all unique items, enchantments to all dungeon and raid bosses for the controlling faction
• 8 levelup dungeons
• 4 max level dungeons meaning 12 heroic dungeons alltogether
• 3 Tier7 raid instances
• separate loot by a full Tier between a 10 and 25 man raid
• more loot in 25 man raids, because there are more players
• more accessible heroic dungeons, wider variety of setups will be successful in them
• 1 hour dungeon experiences
• better quests, not only kill the boss, kill 10 creatures.
• Gun’drak - 80 dungeon in Zul’drak. Accumulation of a large questline that encompasses the entire zone. Feel more connected to the story, understand why stuff happened
• Arthas will be kept as the last boss, like Kil’jaeden, won’t be patched in earlier

• PvP gear from the PvE system. Won’t be the best loot, but it gives access and an early starting gear
• Items that work for more classes. Remove unnecessary stats from classes that keep loot seperated. Merge stats so that items work with at least 3 classes
• faction shouldn’t feel like a grind. Championing: equipping a tabard for the faction rewards you reputation when in any dungeon
• remove faction requirement from heroic dungeons
• Death Knight isn’t intended to replace any class

Occulus

• Level 80 dungeon in Coldarra. First dungeon where you can fly inside. Players get a drake, mount it and fight with individual spells. Some drakes heal, some tank, some damage!
• Series of flying rings, you can choose what order you defeat the mobs on the rings

Ulduar

• 2 dungeons and 1 raid in Storm Peaks
• Halls of Stone: level 77 dungeon. Closely tied with Titan lore. Has Iron Dwarfs!
• Halls of Lightning next to it, level 80 dungeon.
• There’s a raidwing in Ulduar as well
• Continues the Uldaman platinum disc quest line with the the history and creation of Azeroth

Caverns of Time - Culling of Stratholme

• built because of player feedback
• level 80 dungeon, fully scripted
• fighting alongside Arthas before he was corrupted by the Lich King
• timed encounters, non-linear paths on the streets of Stratholme
• same voice talents for Jaine, Uther, Arthas as in Warcraft 3!
• Infinite Dragonflight will cause troubles here as well
• players will start outside the city in the forest when they enter the dungeon

Q&A

How will legendary drops work in WotLK?

They prefer like how Atiesh worked, but time restrictions may interfere.

Will there be attunements in WotLK or only gearchecks

No attunements on initial level 80 content (including Naxxramas), level-up dungeons, or Heroics. They do plan to have an attunement path on higher end raiding content in the expansion, but it will be easier to understand what’s required, and won’t be nearly as overbearing as initial TBC attunements.