World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic players will soon be able to confront iconic Warcraft villain Illidan Stormrage himself, with the game’s latest content update adding two new raids in the form of Black Temple and the Battle For Mount Hyjal.
The new raids are the star of the patch, but the two endgame encounters aren’t live just yet. As detailed by Blizzard, the new raids will actually unlock on January 27 alongside the Netherwing daily quest hub. The Netherwing quests eventually award one of the game’s cooler mounts–the Netherdrake–but the grind to reach exalted reputation is a long one.
Players will need to complete the necessary attunement questlines to access each new raid, which includes completing previous raids like Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. Bosses from previous raids will now drop additional loot, which should make gearing up for the new content a little easier.
This new patch also ushers in the start of a PvP Arena season 3, and unlike the raids, it’s live now. New Arena gear will now be on sale, while gear from older seasons will be available at a discount.
Warlock players can take part in an optional new quest to unlock the Incubus pet, a male version of the game’s Succubus pet. The introduction of the Incubus comes as part of a wider initiative by the WoW development team to make Azeroth a more welcoming and inclusive place, with Blizzard having recently changed potentially problematic achievement names, dialogue, and other in-game content in the wake of multiple sexual harassment and lawsuit investigations at Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard in a nearly $70 billion deal. You can check out the full Burning Crusade patch notes below.
Burning Crusade Classic Patch 2.5.3 Notes
Content
The Black Temple
Defeat the Betrayer himself—Illidan Stormrage—atop the Black Temple.
- Raid bosses: 9 (High Warlord Naj’entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, Teron Gorefiend, Gurtogg Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, The Illidari Council, Illidan Stormrage)
- Level: 70
- Location: The Black Temple, Shadowmoon Valley
Improve your standing with the Ashtongue Deathsworn to earn rewards from Okuno inside the Black Temple.
The Battle for Mount Hyjal
Preserve the outcome of the pivotal Battle for Mount Hyjal and ensure the demon Archimonde meets his fate.
- Raid bosses: 5 (Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz’rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde)
- Level: 70
- Location: Caverns of Time, Tanaris
Improve your standing with the Scale of the Sands to earn rewards from Indormi in the Caverns of time.
Raid Attunements
Those who wish to brave the two new raid instances must complete the required attunement quests first. The required quests must be completed once per character. All new raid content will unlock at 3:00 p.m. PST on Thursday, January 27.
Epic Gems
Epic gem Jewelcrating Designs will be available from Indormi in the Caverns of Time. Epic gems can be obtained from Battle for Mount Hyjal through mining (requires 375 mining skill), and as rare drops from Black Temple.
Netherwing Daily Quests
Earn Netherwing reputation through daily quests in Shadowmoon Valley. Collect Netherwing eggs to speed up reputation gains. Epic Netherdrake mounts will be available to players that reach Exalted reputation (requires Artisan Riding skill).
Burning Crusade Arena Season 3
The week of January 18, with the weekly reset in each region, Arena Season 3 has begun. The matchmaker has been adjusted to increase the range of possible opponents. This will help match players of different matchmaking levels more quickly. As before, teams with similar ratings who queue at the same will be prioritized to match against each other.
Updates
- Bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep now drop one additional class set token for a total of 3.
- Bosses in Magtheridon’s Lair and Gruul’s Lair now drop an additional loot token for a total of 3.
- The Lurker Below, Morogrim Tidewalker, A’lar, and High Astromancer Solarian have had their loot tables updated to their final state, which includes additional drops for each boss, and in some cases, new items.
- All dungeon bosses now have a chance to drop epic gems in Heroic difficulty.
- New Darkmoon cards now have a chance to drop.
- Warlocks can now learn to summon an Incubus by completing a new questline:
- In Undercity, speak to Carendin Halgar.
- In Orgrimmar, speak to Gan’rul Bloodeye.
- In Stormwind, speak to Gakin the Darkbinder.
- The Consortium vendor now sells: Formula: Enchant Weapon – Major Striking.
- The Honor Hold and Thrallmar vendor now sells: Pattern: Netherscale Ammo Pouch.
- The Lower City vendor now sells: Enchant Ring – Stats and Pattern: Quiver of a Thousand Feathers.
- Mind Quickening Gem is no longer usable in Arenas. The trinket is unchanged in all other areas of play.
- The following items are no longer usable inside Arenas:
- Nigh-Invulnerability Belt
- Net-o-Matic Projector
- Dazzling Longsword
- Silent Fang
- Skull of Impending Doom
User Interface
- You can now select multiple activities when searching for groups in the Looking for More UI.
- After listing your group in the Looking for Group UI, the UI will now automatically search for other groups interested in the same activities.
- In the Looking for Group UI, the entire dropdown body can now be clicked to open the dropdown.
- You may now report players searched via /who using the right-click menu.
- Added a more descriptive error message when attempting to transfer a character who is an Arena team captain from one realm to another.
- Fixed an issue that caused Duels to end after 15 minutes.
- Added a “have materials” filter in the Profession UI.
- Fixed an issue that caused interface errors to appear when using the character Unstuck service.
- Fixed a bug where the player model in the character sheet could get stuck rotating when the player moves the mouse.
Bug Fixes
- Made some improvements to player pathing during fear to reduce situations where players end up outside or under terrain.
- Fixed a bug that caused certain flight paths to incorrectly take players through mountains and other terrain.
- Fixed an issue where Alliance players who died in Ogri’la were teleported to the incorrect graveyard after releasing.
- Fixed a bug preventing dialogue options from working correctly in several quests that offer replacement quest items from the quest giver, such as “The Hawk’s Essence”.
- Fixed an issue that caused mounted footstep/hoof sounds to play at incorrect speeds for certain mounts.
- Fixed an incorrect tooltip for the Spell Reflection ability that the Coilfang Serpentguard in Serpentshrine Cavern cast on themselves that indicates that it reflects 4 spells when it actually reflects all spells for its duration.
- Resolved an issue where Renataki of the Thousand Blades’ Thousand Blades ability could register an unintentionally huge number of hits and cause performance issues. It’s meant to be a figurative Thousand Blades, not a literal thousand. Relax, Renataki.
- Fixed multiple issues with Succubus creature animations.
- Fixed multiple issues with Worgen creature animations.
- Fixed an issue that caused belts to sometimes vanish when equipping an unequipping items.
- Resolved an issue that caused human models to use the incorrect animations when slowed.
- Some tamable pets, such as Rip-Blade Ravager, will now correctly change colors randomly when they are resummoned by the Hunter.
- Developers’ note: This will only affect pets tamed after the launch of this patch.
- Fixed an issue where the Paladin Trainer Noellene in Eversong Woods doesn’t show up when tracking Class Trainers.
- The Gladiator’s Spellblade now displays the appropriate textures.
- Fixed an issue that caused Shaman weapon enhancements displayed their visual effects twice on player weapons.
- The Aurora Cowl item is no longer missing its model.
- Fixed an issue where Shadow Word: Death could damage the caster when a low-level target is killed by the spell.
- Fixed an issue where certain channeled auras, such as Mind Flay from Fel Eye Stalks, were not stacking correctly.
- Effects that increase damage taken from spells by a flat amount, such as Shadow Resonance, will now work correctly with stacking damage-over-time auras.
- Snakes created by Snake Trap will now correctly not trigger most “On Kill” procs.
- Developers’ note: Some “On Kill” effects, such as Spirit Tap, will still correctly be triggered by slaying the snakes.
- Fixed an issue that caused loot sparkles to not properly scale up in size for larger creatures. Now please – loot the hounds.
Source: Gamespot
