Shadowlands: Blizzcon Q&A Takeaways

• Author: Furious
• Date: February 20, 2021
• Updated: February 20, 2021
• Expansion: World of Warcraft

Sylvanas

• Will be a boss in the next raid: Sanctum of Domination
• The confrontation will be one of the most epic parts of the story, they have put a lot of time into it

Anduin

• Anduin was dominated by the jailer, they needed him because of his purity and ability to walk into Bastion without being challenged
• Anduin is still there, but not in control
• Uther touches his wound that was made by a weapon of the maw, at some level he recognizes that Anduin is touched by the Maw

Will we be receiving more race/class combinations

• It’s something we always examine going forward, but it’s not something we’re looking to change in the middle of Shadowlands

What happened to the Archon? Is she Dead? Or is she just wounded?

• You can see her hand move
• She survives the attack
• Once the covenants hear about it, it drives them to work together

Do you plan to address the faction imbalance soon?

• At this point we don’t think the racials are imbalanced
• Social dynamics are a big factor is causing the continued racial imbalances
• It’s a challenge to solve
• They’ve looked at multiple options, but it is a social problem that needs a social solution
• It is a top priority for Blizzard to fix
• They want to preserve faction identity
• No specific answers now
• Across the entire player base faction balance is good, the imbalance is at the Mythic+ and Raiding level

On some realms, there seems to have been a mass exodus to higher pop realms. Are there plans to connect more of them?

• It is a manual process
• It was paused for the Shadowlands launch
  • Shadowlands had a big impact on server pops so they wanted to wait until post launch and focus on the launch itself
• It’s a tool they have to use that they may use later

Will you ever let Horde and Alliance raid together?

• Ian said I would not say never, but it’s important to maintain faction identity
• It has already happened with Arena

Will our amount of anima be increased later?

• We have been tuning the anima rewards and will continue to monitor
• We will be looking at adding additional anima drops with Chains of Domination
• It was designed to span the entirety of the expansion

What will Sire Denathrius do, we will see him again?

• From the beginning they loved Sire Denathrius and the performance
• They will find some other role for him to take in the future
• The memes are profound and many
• Will have to wait and see what happens

When will we see more heritage armor for the races that is missing?

• As they were released the team was more and more excited with the response
• They are working on the additional missing heritage armor where it’s missing

Do you have any plans to bring the auction house back to the mobile app?

• It will not the same as it was
• They removed it and worked on the auction house in game
• It was convenient for players and they recognize that
• They are going to re-add it in some form, but not as full featured as it is in game

Will there be more new character customization options added in Shadowlands?

• There will not be more added in Shadowlands
• These are big projects, they want to put the time in and be thoughtful about it

What are the actual requirements for flying in Shadowlands?

• Shadowlands pathfinder in Chains of Domination will be unlocked by completing the covenant quest lines
• You can not fly directly from zone to zone
• To fly from zone to zone still need to use flight paths

Is there work currently being done for new Torghast anima powers for later patches?

• This is already being done on the PTR with patch 9.0.5
• As we continue to expand Torghast there will be new powers
• It will be done as it makes sense, it gives players a chance to be overpowered

Would you consider letting anima power continue for a short period outside Torghast?

• Let’s keep the overpoweredness inside Torghast

What is the difference between the passage of time in the Shadowlands and on Azeroth?

• When you’re in the cosmic (non-Azeroth) realms, time is perceived differently

Would you ever consider bringing back 10 man content?

• Mega dungeon content is effectively 10 man content, the 5 player mega dungeons fill that role

What’s Bolvar up to and where is his story going in Shadowlands?

• It’s was great to be able to bring him back
• There is a price to pay for the visions to peer into the Maw
• He’s a great figure to rally the Covenants and lead the fight into the Maw

Will Teldrassil be rebuilt or become habitable again?

• Their story is not yet done
• They will be talking about that story as we move into Chains of Domination

How do you get the Wandering Ancient Mount?

• Team was on schedule with Shadowlands, so they used some time to create a mount to give back to players
• Everyone with Shadowlands will get the mount with patch 9.0.5