- Author: Pride
- Date: September 24, 2022
- Updated: September 24, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Blizzard just pushed a round of fairly major changes to the WotLK Beta. There are 4 changes all in all, the raid instance lockout that was just pushed to WotLK Classic servers, and 3 new ones.
Sartharion Buffs
Sartharion is a raid boss in the Obsidian Sanctum WotLK raid, who comes with 3 mini-boss dragons. Players can choose to kill the 3 mini-bosses before engaging Sartharion, or fight all 4 bosses at the same time, a “hard mode” version of the fight known as “Sarth+3” or “Sarth 3D” which rewards bonus loot. However, it takes a while for the mini-bosses to get to Sartharion, so players back in the day discovered that a raid could “zerg” Sartharion and kill him before the 2nd & 3rd mini-boss manage to arrive, thus clearing the “hard mode” version of the fight, well, easily.
Blizzard is changing that. Normally, Sartharion gets a 25% boost to his HP if any single mini-boss is alive. Blizzard is changing that boost to scale with how many mini-bosses are currently alive: 25% with 1 drake alive, 45% with 2 drakes alive, and 65% with all 3 drakes alive. This will in turn cause him to have too much HP for players to zerg through before the adds arrive, thus essentially completely killing off the zerg strategy. A very significant change to the raid, that will certainly have significant impact on player behaviour.
PvP Gear Cost Adjustments
Blizzard is changing the cost of PvP items, so they properly require both arena points & honour points in order to purchase, as it was the case in 2008 WotLK.
In doing so however, they have very strangely decided to keep a very peculiar bug in the game: Savage arena gear, which is intended to be the “beginner” gear for players just starting off PvP, can normally be purchased with just honour points. However, for some odd reason, the PvP vendors in Gadgetzan, Area 52 and Dalaran will sell it for both honour points + arena points, while the PvP vendors in faction capital cities (Stormwind & Orgrimmar) correctly only ask for honour points. It is completely unclear why Blizzard would deliberately choose to keep this oddity in the game, as players may find themselves accidentally spending arena points when they did not need to.
Real First Achievement Adjustments
There is a secret limitation in the game that prevents players from attaining Realm First achievements for 60 days after transferring to a different server. This is intended to prevent players from simply transferring to a new or low population server, and consequently claiming multiple Realm First achievements on that server, while players on that server cannot compete with them.
Blizzard is changing that limitation such that these Realm First achievements are only unavailable for 24 hours after a player takes a free transfer to a different server, rather than 60 days. This is intended to incentivize people to take a free transfer to a different server, if their current server is having population issues, rather than punishing those who choose to move out.
These are some massive changes and it’s going to be interesting how to play out. What are your thoughts on the changes? Let us know in the comments below!
Beta Updates
September 23, 2022
- Realm first Achievements are now unavailable for 24 hours after a player-character takes a free transfer to another realm (was 60 days).
- Developers’ notes: This is intended to eliminate a concern that some players might have about using Free Transfers to move to a realm that isn’t overcrowded.
- Will of Sartharion now increases Sartharion’s health by 25% with 1 drake alive, 45% with 2 drakes alive, and 65% with three drakes alive (was 25%).
- Developers’ notes: Sarth+3 should still be quite manageable, but the unintended strategy of simply burning down the boss should be much less viable. Please note that the in-game tooltip is currently incorrect and will be updated in the future.
- Raids will now count towards the 5 instance-per-hour limit.
- Developers’ notes: The hourly instance limit prevents players from entering instances that they’ve entered at least once already within the last hour. With this change, farming a dungeon should not prevent you from entering a raid instance, so long as you don’t attempt to reset and re-enter that raid instance multiple times.
- The costs and availability of Season 5 Arena gear have been adjusted to their final values.
- Developers’ notes: There were previously some inconsistencies on PvP gear from season to season, especially with rating requirements. This update fixes Savage and Hateful Arena gear so that they require both Honor Point and Arena Point costs (where intended). Previously in the Wrath Beta, they were sold for Arena Points only. As a reminder, the vendors that offer Arena gear in Dalaran, Area 52, Gadgetzan, and the PvP Barracks in capital cities will not sell Season 5 gear to you until Season 5 begins. Savage Arena gear will be purchaseable for only Honor in capital cities, but is sold for Arena Points + Honor in Gadgetzan, Area 52, and Dalaran. This is intended and corresponds with original Wrath of the Lich King.
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