Adventurers,

Prepare for a new adventure: a fresh start never before seen on Ascension. Play as any of the Original 9 Classes and embark into a revitalized Azeroth, progressing through Warcraft’s most iconic trilogy: Vanilla, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, each enhanced with Ascension’s classic+ content

Enter the world as a Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Hunter, Shaman, Warlock, Priest, Paladin and Druid with NEW Race and Class Combinations, new spells and talents, and mystic enchantments tailored to the original classes.

Embark into an expanded Open World with NEW RPG Elements on Creatures, New Open World RPG Items, and Immersive Gear Drops on enemies. Experience new quests, new professions, over 20,000+ new items, new spells, new rares, new dungeons, mythic+ dungeons, enhanced raids, new and upgraded battlegrounds and arenas, and even entirely new ways to play like Hardcore Trials or Adventure Mode.

Introducing Bronzebeard 

Bronzebeard is an upcoming Ascension classic+ realm dedicated solely to the Original 9 Classes with a focus on the Open World. This realm expands Azeroth with incredible new content you’ve never seen before alongside 8+ years of custom content redesigned to fit the Classic+ environment. 

What is Bronzebeard?

Realm Overview

• An Ascension Classic+ Server dedicated solely to the Original 9 Classes
• x1.5 Experience Rates
• The most robust Classic+ Server ever
  • Massively Expanded Open World
  • Open World Focus
• All-New Content: in Classic+ Azeroth
• Progress through Classic, TBC, and WotLK
• Professionally developed by a Full-Time Team 
• Ascension has been online for 8+ Years

Features:

• New Ways to Play the Original 9 Classes
  • New Race Class Combos
  • WotLK Talent Trees in Vanilla
    • New Talents added to Baseline WotLK Trees
    • Unprecedented customization for your class and your identity
  • Mystic Enchantments
    • New Artifact Enchants
  • New Tamable Types
    • Tameable Dragonkin for Mage
    • Permanent Enslaved Demons for Warlocks
    • Tamable Elementals for Shaman
• Expanded Zones, Points of Interests, Locations in the Open World
• Expanded RPG Stats on Open World Creatures
  • Creatures now have unique strengths and weaknesses depending on what they look like
  • I.e. creatures with a shield have more armor and can block attacks, creatures without a shield can’t block might have lower armor, etc.
• Immersive Gear Drops
  • Creatures drop the items they’re physically wearing
  • With new stats representative of that creature’s strengths
  • 7,000 new Hand-tailored Items to discover
• RPG Items in the Open World
  • Lootable RPG items scattered throughout the open world in iconic locations
  • Provides a reason to go out and adventure in Azeroth
  • Gear up on your adventure and experience next-level RPG progression
• New Rare Creatures in the Open World
  • Over 150 new rare creatures are lurking throughout Azeroth.
• New World Bosses
  • Custom Loot, exclusive to Ascension
• Crafting Overhaul
  • New Crafting Upgrade Kits to make crafting a part of the journey
  • Experience from Crafting
  • Crafting Affixes
  • New Professions: Woodcutting and Woodworking
• Overhauled End-Game Itemization
  • Global Tier Tokens
  • Expanded Tier Sets
  • Horizontal Progression
• Massively Expanded PvE
  • See individual section for details
• Massively Expanded PvP
  • See individual section for details
• 50+ Unique Hardcore Trials
• Cross-Faction
  • Grouping
  • Guilds
  • Auction House
• Hybrid Risk System
  • Toggle between PvE, PvP, and Optional High Risk PvP all on one realm
  • Opt-in High Risk PvP
• TOGGLEABLE Transmogrification
  • You can turn off custom transmogs other people are wearing or spell effects to have an immersive classic experience

Bronzebeard recaptures the magic of stepping into Azeroth for the first time. 

The Next Stage of the Alpha + Release Schedule

Phase 3 of the Bronzebeard Alpha starts May 2nd! Phase 3 raises the level cap to level 60. Dive into the classic+ journey with all of the new content Bronzebeard has added over the past 5 months AND NEW STUFF that nobody has seen yet:

• Level Cap gets raised to 60.
• Unlock Iconic Level 60 abilities.
• Dive into end-game content
• New Points of Interest and areas to explore in the Open World
• New creature RPG stats
• MORE RPG Items in the Open World
  • Including rpg items placed in all end-game zones
• Better dungeon difficulty and scaling
• Improved item scaling
  • More variety in item slots
  • A better spread of stats on items

Alpha Phase 3 - Level 60

Unlock Iconic Level 60 abilities:

Warrior

• Shockwave
• Bladestorm
• Titan’s Grip
• [New] - Single-minded Fury

Paladin

• Divine Storm
• Beacon of Light
• Hammer of the Righteousness

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
• Explosive Shot
• Chimaera Shot

Rogue

• Tricks of the Trade
• Killing Spree
• Shadow Dance
• Hunger for Blood

Priest

• Penance
• Guardian Spirit
• Dispersion

Shaman

• Feral Spirits
• Thunderstorm
• Riptide

Mage

• Deep Freeze
• Living Bomb
• Arcane Barrage

Warlock

• Chaos Bolt
• Metamorphosis
• Haunt

Druid

• Berserk
• Starfall
• Wild Growth

FAST TIMELINE WITH TESTS EVERY SINGLE DAY

Phase 3 of the Alpha will feature a HYPER AGGRESSIVE TIMELINE, basically a release every day for testing. Where many team members will be around basically every waking minute to take feedback and ensure things are running smoothly.

May 2

• Heroic Dungeons (Classic)

May 3

• World Boss: Setis

May 4

• World Boss: Azuregos

May 5

• PvP Progression 1

May 6

• World Boss: Kazzak

May 7

• Raid: Zul'Gurub

May 10

• Mythic Dungeons (Classic)

May 11

• Crow's Cache (Vanilla)

May 12

• World Boss: Soggoth

May 14

• Molten Core Raid

May 16

• Classic Dungeons Mythic+ 1-10

May 19

• Arena Frenzy 

May 20

• World Boss: Nightmare Dragons

May 22

• Onyxia

Experience a World Reborn

For the past two decades, you’ve explored Azeroth’s caves and catacombs, mapped out its dangers, and conquered many of its trials. One of its greatest strengths is how vast and wide the world is.

Bronzebeard introduces NEW ways to explore the world you love!

Bronzebeard revitalizes the world by introducing new, original content that feels at-home in Azeroth. New locations, points of interest, and additions to zones expand the areas where you can find new RPG Items and rare creatures, and use your unique strengths to tackle new challenges.

Alpha Details:

You can opt-in to the Bronzebeard Alpha right now right now: 

• Bronzebeard Alpha has progressed to level 55 and Level 60 will be released on May 2nd!
• 1-55 is currently available!
• Unlock the Bronzebeard Alpha with one of the links below!
  • Unlocking EITHER Bronzebeard Bundle gives access to EVERY ONE of the Bronzebeard tests until release.
  • Bronzebeard Alpha Founders will get access to a discord to discuss with developers updates for the realm and give feedback on the direction.

ALL Bronzebeard Alpha Bundles will be 35% off the below price until Monday, May 5th!

Elune

Bronzebeard Alpha Founder Bundle (100dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/elune/1127/bronzebeard-original-9-classless-alpha-pack/ascension-bundles

Bronzebeard Alpha Master’s Founder Bundle (200dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/elune/1174/bronzebeard-original-9-classes-alpha-master-bundle/ascension-bundles

Area 52

Bronzebeard Alpha Founder Bundle (100dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/area-52/1127/bronzebeard-original-9-classless-alpha-pack/ascension-bundles

Bronzebeard Alpha Master’s Founder Bundle (200dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/area-52/1174/bronzebeard-original-9-classes-alpha-master-bundle/ascension-bundles

The Original Classes

• Play as the Original 9 Classes
• New Spells
• New Talents
• Mystic Enchantments

Bronzebeard features the original 9 classes enhanced with new ways to play: embark into Azeroth with the classic champions you know and love–Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Warlock, Priest, Paladin, Druid, Hunter, and Shaman.

Play them the way you remember or with NEW spells and talents, ensuring that specs you’ve always wanted to play in Classic but have never been able to like Arcane Mage, Retribution Paladin, Survivalist Hunter, or Discipline Priest can thrive.

Harness the power of TBC and Wrath spells in vanilla to unlock new playstyles, Discover new talents added to the base WOTLK talent trees to bolster specs that didn't have support:

New Race Class Combos

The following Race/Class combos are unlocked in Bronzebeard:

• Troll Druid
  • Troll Druid with customizable shapeshift forms by changing hair/facial features.

Expanded Classes

On Bronzebeard, you’ll find both the classic spells and talents you love as well as new spells and talents that unlock new ways to play.

• Unlock essential spells like Arcane Blast and Crusader strike while leveling so that you can play specs like Arcane Mage and Retribution Paladin in Classic
• Unlock spells from future expansions downscaled to Vanilla to enhance the depth of your journey
• Discover completely new spells and talents tailored for the Classic+ setting

Additionally, certain talents that are essential for builds to function have had their talent cost reduced from 5 points to 3 points, while keeping the strength of the 5-point talent. This was done to ensure that these specs were playable:

For example, Fire and Brimstone is now 3 points instead of 5 points, though it kept its 5-point power.

This change accounts for the fact that Wrath-era specializations were designed with access to nearly all lower-tier talents due to having 71 points to spend. By reducing talent costs, these specs remain functional at level 60 without the devs needing to break out a calculator to re-balance entire specs for level 60 while still retaining that feeling of being complete.

Here are JUST SOME of the Spell and Talent changes to the Original 9 Classes:

Not including all of the mystic enchants!

Warrior

• NEW Talent: Single-Minded Fury

• Improved Defensive Stance Talent now reduces your chance to be critically struck by 3/6%.
• Defensive Stance, Taunt, and Sunder Armor are now available at level 10. 
  • Instead of being learned through a quest
• Slam is now available at level 20.
• Downscaled Spell: Intervene is now available at level 40.
• Downscaled Spell: Enraged Regeneration is now available at level 44.
• Downscaled Spell: Heroic Throw is now available at level 46.
• Downscaled Spell: Spell Reflection is now available at level 50.
• Downscaled Spell: Commanding Shout is now available at level 56.
• Downscaled Spell: Shattering Throw is now available at level 60.

Paladin

• Crusader Strike is now a starting ability.
• Righteous Fury is now available at level 10.
• Hand of Reckoning is now available at level 12.
• Sacred Duty Talent now reduces your chance to be critically struck by 3/6%.
• Downscaled Spell: Divine Plea is now available at level 16.
• Downscaled Spell: Crusader Aura is now available at level 32.
• Downscaled Spell: Seal of Vengeance or Corruption is now available at level 40.
• Downscaled Spell: Shield of Righteousness is now available at level 40.
• Downscaled Spell: Avenging Wrath is now available at level 48.
• Downscaled Spell: Sacred Shield is now available at level 60.

Hunter

• Pets now have 5 more talent points available at level 60.
• Expose Weakness can now trigger from all hunter shots and abilities rather than just ranged ones.
• New Talent: Relentless
  • Damage from Mongoose Bite, Raptor Strike and Counterattack pierce through 7/14/20% of the target's armor.
• New Talent: Deadly Focus
  • Decreases the cooldown of Mongoose Bite by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.
    • Giving mongoose bite a 4.5 second cooldown.
  • Your Mongoose Bite have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to enable the use of Counterattack. When used this way Counterattack does not immobilize the target.
• New Talent: Hunting For Sport
  • Increases the damage of your melee abilities on targets under 35% health by 6/12/18%. Raptor Strike has a 33/66/100% chance to increase the melee haste of party and raid members by 20% for 20 seconds.
    • Since Death Knights aren’t available yet, without this change only enhancement shamans could bring the melee haste buff.
• New Spell: Quick Shot is now available as a starting ability.
  • Quick Shot is a direct analogue to Arcane Shot but dealing physical damage and having a lower cooldown.
    • Use Quick Shot on lower armored targets to deal maximum damage.
    • Quick Shot benefits from multiple Marksmanship Talents:
      • Barrage
      • Improved Barrage
      • Piercing Shots
      • Marked for Death
• Tame Beast is now a baseline ability at level 10 
  • instead of learned through a quest and is available at level 10.
• Steady Shot is now available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Kill Command is now available at level 34.
• Downscaled Spell: Kill Shot is now available at level 36.
• Downscaled Spell: Freezing Arrow is now available at level 46.
• Downscaled Spell: Snake Trap is now available at level 52.
• Downscaled Spell: Call Stabled Pet is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Misdirection is now available at level 60.

Druid

• Combo Points are now bound to the player, rather than the target meaning if you swap targets, you keep all your combo points.
• Bear Form and Growl are now available at level 10
  • Instead of being learned through a quest.
• Increased threat generation in Bear Form and buffed the Base Bear Form’s armor contribution to 220% from 180%.
• Swipe is now available at level 10.
• Faerie Fire (Feral) is now available at level 14.
• New Spell: Starsurge is now available at level 32.
• New Spell: Thrash is now available at level 40.
  • Thrash can trigger Savage Defense when it critically strikes and with the talent Primal Gore, Thrash’s Periodic Critical Strikes can also trigger Savage Defense.
• Downscaled Spell: Lacerate is now available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Lifebloom is now available at level 50.
• Downscaled Spell: Savage Roar is available at 54.
• Downscaled Spell: Nourish is available at level 58.
• Downscaled Spell: Cyclone is available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Maim is available at level 60.

Rogue

• Combo Points are now bound to the player, rather than the target meaning if you swap targets, you keep all your combo points.
• Poisons are now learned spells from your trainer rather than items and no longer require a quest to be completed to learn.
• Mutilate is now available at level 30.
• Rogues now start with the ability to dual-wield.
• Downscaled Spell: Fan of Knives is now available at level 36.
• Downscaled Spell: Envenom is now available at level 40.
• Downscaled Spell: Shiv is now available at level 50.
• Downscaled Spell: Cloak of Shadows is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Tricks of the Trade is now available at level 60.

Mage

• Downscaled Spell: Arcane Blast is now available at level 24.
• Downscaled Spell: Ice Lance is now available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Molten Armor is now available at level 50.
• Downscaled Spell: Frostfire Bolt is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Mirror Image is now available at level 60.
• Fixed Ignite Munching
  • Hitting a target at the nearly same time with Fireball and Pyroblast or Fireball and Fireblast would cause only your second critical strike to apply ignite damage rather than both critical strikes.
• Glyph of Arcane Barrage now provides 5% of your missing mana when you use Arcane Barrage.

Warlock

• Summon Imp, Voidwalker, Felhunter and Succubus are now available via the trainer at levels: 1, 10, 30 respectively.
• Downscaled Spell: Incinerate is available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Shadowflame is now available at level 38.
• Downscaled Spell: Soulshatter is now available at level 46.
• Downscaled Spell: Fel Armor is available at level 50.
• Downscaled Spell: Demonic Circle: Summon is now available at level 54.
• Downscaled Spell: Demonic Circle: Teleport is now available at level 54.
• Downscaled Spell: Ritual of Souls is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Seed of Corruption is available at level 60.

Priest

• Downscaled Spell: Shadowfiend is now available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Mind Sear is now available at level 38.
• Downscaled Spell: Prayer of Mending is now available at level 44.
• Downscaled Spell: Shadow Word: Death is now available at level 46.
• Downscaled Spell: Binding Heal is now available at level 54.
• Downscaled Spell: Divine Hymn is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Hymn of Hope is now available at level 60.
• New Talent: Afterkindling
  • Increases all damage done to targets affected by your Holy Fire by 1/2/3/4/5% and increases its duration by 0.6/1.2/1.8/2.4/3.0 seconds.
• New Talent: Blessed Vengeance
  • Increases the critical strike damage of your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance by 20/40/60/80/100%.
• New Talent: Radiant Fury
  • Increases the damage of your Smite, Holy Fire and Holy Nova up to 3/6/9/12/15% of your Spell Damage.
• New Talent: Divine Accuracy
  • Increases your Hit Rating by 4/8/12% of your Spirit.

Shaman

• Shamans now start with the ability to parry… 
• Primal Strike has been added as a starting ability.
• New Spell: Bind Elemental is now available at level 26.
• Downscaled Spell: Lava Lash (which also teaches you Dual Wield) is available at level 20.
• Downscaled Spell: Wrath of Air totem is now available at level 30.
• Downscaled Spell: Lava Burst is now available at level 46.
• Downscaled Spell: Heroism/Bloodlust is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Earth Elemental Totem is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Fire Elemental Totem is now available at level 60.
• New Talent: Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
  • Increases your chance to critically strike by 2/4/6% and increases the damage of Stormstrike by 10/20/30%.

Mystic Enchantments

Augment your power with a new Mystic Enchantment system tailored to the original 9 classes with all of the enchants waiting for you to find them in iconic places in the Open World

• 4 Different Rarities
• New: Artifact Mystic Enchantments
  • Unlocks at Level 35
• Legendary Mystic Enchantments
  • Unlocked at level 35
• Epic Mystic Enchantments
  • Unlocks at levels: 
    • 15
    • 25
    • 40
• Rare Mystic Enchantments
  • Unlocked at Levels
    • 10
    • 45
    • 50
    • 55
    • 58
    • 60

Mystic Enchantments enhance your class with new spells, abilities, and power so you can specialize where you want. These enhancements feature an intuitive UI where you can explore and slot them effortlessly. 

Mystic Enchantments feature iconic spells you know from future expansions, as well as potent passive abilities and even entirely new original skills.

New: Artifact Enchantment

Artifact Quality enchantments are a new type of mystic enchantment exclusive to the Original 9 Classes. Use them to harness a variety of powerful utility cooldown spells for your class that will help refine your strengths: spells like Mass Invisibility for Mages, Smoke Bomb for Rogues, and Avatar for Warriors are just a few of the Artifact Spells you’ll discover. 

You can have 1 Artifact mystic enchantment.

Legendary Enchantments

Legendary Enchantments put colossal power where you want it: from passive power like Marksmanship Mastery and Spreading Tide to DEVASTATING new spells like Cremation and Colossus Smash, legendary Enchantments are extremely powerful effects that define your class. 

Examples of Legendary Enchantments for the Mage:

• Cremation: A new powerful custom spell.
• Meteor: A spec defining spell from future expansions.
• Hot Hands: A passive ability that changes the way you play.
• Tame Dragonkin: Allows you to tame Dragons, granting mages a permanent pet.
• Fire Mastery: A powerful passive that doesn’t change how you play, instead it powers up the Fire Mage spec you know and love.

Epic Enchants

Epic enchantments augment your abilities in unique ways: they can teach you new spells and abilities, change how existing spells work, or grant powerful passive power.

Some enchantments will be ones you may know from Classless realms or even future WoW expansions, tailored to the Original 9 Classes.

Others will be completely new abilities or passives.

Rare Enchantments

Rare enchantments give you access to glyphs or fully powered-up key talents from other trees like Spell Impact, Cruelty, and Deep Wounds. Rare Enchantments allow you access to talents you wouldn’t have been able to choose with only 51 talent points, completing your rotation, and unlocking even more ways to play your class. You can have up to 6 rare enchantments.

Since Bronzebeard allows you to go deeper into Talent Trees than you could in Vanilla, you need a way to ALSO get critical crossover talents crucial to your build. With Rare Enchantments, you can get essential talents while getting to the bottom of your preferred tree. 

The majority of 10-25 talents are available as Mystic Enchantments. These enchantments do not stack with existing talent.

Below are some examples of Warrior Rare Enchantments:

These Mystic Enchantments are tailored to the original 9 classes, opening up new ways to play and supporting classic playstyles. Whether you want to play a classic Fire Mage or dive into something completely new like a Crimson Defender Paladin, you’ll find Enchantments that suit your playstyle.

On Bronzebeard, you’ll find Mystic Enchantments hidden in the Open World—in that crypt or cavern you’ve never had a reason to venture into, or in the dusty corner of an abandoned house in Andorhal, something extraordinary could be hidden.

You can also go to your trainer to choose some of your first enchantments.

Or you can unlock additional enchantments for Marks of Ascension:

There are over 1000+ Mystic Enchantments across all 9 classes for you to seek out and master. 

Unlock your enchantments, forge your identity, and leave your mark on Azeroth.

In an Expanded World

New Points of Interest in the Open World

Adventuring in the Open World is one of the best parts of your journey through Azeroth: Bronzebeard adds dozens of new locations, custom Points of Interest, and even new areas to the Open World that you can explore on your adventure! 

These points of interest aren’t just for looks: you might find powerful foes to slay there or exciting new loot to discover, so seek out these new places while you adventure. 

These points of interest will continue to be expanded over time with new content to explore.

Looks like a pretty powerful staff…

Wonder what explosive new item is found here?

Looks like someone didn’t make it. Will you?

Don’t wake him up!

New Items to Discover

Bronzebeard features new LOOTABLE items in the Open World so that you can find valuable, powerful gear while out on an adventure.

• 1800+ new, unique, HAND-PLACED items to discover in the Open World
• Ranging from uncommon to epic
• These can be found in the world as lootable objects or from new events, quests, and more.

Azeroth has over 1800+ lootable items hand-placed in iconic locations throughout Azeroth that you can go find. These are pieces of gear that you can SEE (with your eyes) and LOOT, encouraging you to adventure, explore, and discover powerful gear.

Go places you’ve never gone! Who knows? You might find a badass item there. The items are always available, so you won’t have to wait for them to respawn and you can loot them with your party: but you can only loot them once!

These items are hand placed and add to the overall immersion and RPG flavor of the world: they’re not just dropped randomly, they tell a little story to add to Azeroth’s immersive world. For example:

You may find a suspicious looking jar in a cave full of spiders.

You might explore the wreckage of a beached ship and find its Wheel to use as a shield:

You might climb a watchtower and find a crossbow used to shoot encroaching quilboar:

An abandoned spear from a fallen Naga:

A forgotten pitch fork left behind by a clumsy farmer:

A strange experiment that this goblin apparently doesn’t mind you taking:

Crafting Overhaul

Crafting and professions are the lifeblood of Azeroth, providing a unique way to obtain gear, trade with others, and create powerful weapons. But as new dungeon and raid difficulties made it to Ascension, gameplay shifted to ALL of the very best gear in the game being obtained through these dungeons and raids:

Not on Bronzebeard!

Crafting receives an enormous overhaul to ensure that it’s useful, relevant, and powerful. Not only can you use crafting to level up completely on its own, but you can also forge some of the most powerful gear in the game, complete with additional stats.

New Crafting Upgrade Kits

With the release of Bronzebeard, you will be able to upgrade your crafted gear multiple times using crafting kits you can make with base materials in that tier.

This is available for the following professions:

• Blacksmithing

• Leatherworking

• Tailoring

• Engineering

• Make crafting kits for each profession to upgrade your crafted items
• You can now use base materials from that level range to upgrade your items
• There are currently two upgrades
  • Refined
  • Superior

Crafted Item Random Affixes

On Ascension, each individual piece of equipment you craft receives a random additional AFFIX, granting it additional stats beyond what the base weapon would have received.

Items you create will additionally receive ‘...of the Eagle’, ‘...of the Bear’, etc. and even NEW affixes like “...of Expert Strikes” or “...of Rending“, which all provide unique additional stats to the item. For example, you might craft an ‘Arcanite Reaper of Strength’ and get an additional chunk of strength on your weapon! This makes crafted items extremely valuable, and sometimes even more powerful than other items! Craft, trade, and power up!

Random Affixes Update

While ‘random’ affixes sounds super cool on paper, it’s probably not fun in practice to gather all the materials you need for that Arcanite Reaper only to craft an “Arcanite Reaper of Spirit”. Additionally, certain types of item suffered from limited affix pools–like caster gear restricted to affixes that included either spirit or intellect. With a new update to Random Affixes, all items will roll from an expanded, RELEVANT POOL of random affixes:

• Random Affixes have been completely reworked
• Affixes are now categorized into Caster, Agility, and Strength-based affix pools
• The power scaling of affixes now properly aligns with item level and quality
• Affix power is more normalized by the power of item slot rather than a randomly assigned value (e.g., chest pieces have appropriate budget compared to bracers, this is done through a tiering system, you can expect chest to start rolling more stats at an earlier item level than bracers f.ex)
• All item types now have access to appropriate secondary stats and ratings.
• Overpowered outliers on the affix have been reined in while underpowered options have been improved

• Crafting and Gathering now grant Experience

Every time you gather or craft an item, you’ll receive experience: crafting rarer, more powerful items provides more experience, while something like gathering Peacebloom may award the same as slaying a monster. This allows Professions to be a more integrated part of leveling, helping you progress on your adventure.

• New powerful Craftables

Additional powerful craftables such as new food items, new item enchants, (belt buckles, wrist wraps, necklace augments) and new items expand the ways you can craft and trade on Ascension. These make crafting a living, breathing part of the world and ensure the community can work together to strengthen themselves.

• New Profession: Woodcutting

A new profession invites you to scour the forests of Azeroth: welcome to the World of Woodcutting! As a budding lumberjack, your mission is clear-cut: venture into the verdant forests and unleash your inner timber titan. Armed with an axe, you'll embark on a tree-mendous adventure, chopping down mighty oaks, towering pines, and gnarled elders. Harness the power of nature's bountiful resource and convert it into precious lumber, the lifeblood of craftsmen and builders alike. With every swing of your trusty tool, you'll harvest a treasure trove of wood, unlocking the potential for glorious rewards. So, prepare to branch out, embrace the call of the wild, and let the forest be your arboreal playground. It's time to leaf your mark on this arboreal escapade!

A Revitalized RPG

Azeroth is a living, breathing world filled with hundreds of different kinds of creatures: monsters, thugs, elementals, beasts, wizards, undead, ogres, and more. Part of the thrill of an RPG is knowing that each and every creature has its own strengths and weaknesses, and as such, knowing that YOU have strengths and weaknesses with every match up:

For example, as a Warrior you know you want to close the gap on ranged enemies, or equip a shield when fighting a larger, tankier threat that might wear you down. Likewise, as a Rogue you may want to avoid heavily armored targets since they resist your physical damage, but you have a distinct advantage against lightly armored foes. As a Mage, you might not have a ton of defense against melee enemies, but you have the advantage of being able to kite them with frost spells–although you might struggle against a physical ranged attacker.

These strengths and weaknesses are the soul of an RPG: the more unique situations the world has to offer you, the more you can use your skills, spells, and tools to overcome different challenges.

Knowing that the Scarlet Crusader in plate has high armor (so you should use Expose Armor on them) or that a Defias Bandit is going to attack faster and crit you more (so you should kite them) changes how you interact with the world.  It’s what allows your unique strengths to manifest.

It’s what makes your decisions matter.

Over time, creatures on Ascension lost many of the things that made them unique: attack speed, class, damage, immunities, cast times etc.

• Over the past 8 years, many of the RPG elements that made Classic WoW a great RPG were lost one by one. The downstream repercussions of this were significant.
  • Armor was the same across all creatures.
  • Attack speed was the same across all creatures
  • Resistances, Spell Penetration, Expertise, Dodge, Parry, Block 
  • Glancing and Crushing Blows were removed.
  • Parry Hastening was removed

This made it so that the only thing that mattered was your DPS. If you had big damage, you were good in every single situation, with no variance, and no nuance. This is not what makes an RPG great!

Ascension aims not just to re-introduce these classic RPG elements, but to enhance and expand on them. 

• Making the foundations of each Creature you fight unique: 
  • New Creature Classes, e.g.
    • “Rogue” - Creatures who have the “Rogue” classification will have:
      • Higher Critical Strike Chance
      • Slightly Faster attack speed
      • Lower armor than warrior creatures
    • “Hunter” - Creatures who have the “Hunter” classification will have:
      • More ranged AP
      • Lower armor than warrior creatures
  • Hand-Tailored Attack Speed: Creatures attack speeds are now reflective of the weapons they use
    • Creatures with faster weapons like Daggers attack faster and deal less damage
    • Creatures with big giant 2-handed weapons attack slower and deal more damage
    • You can now predict how a fight with a creature is going to go based on what you can SEE!
  • New Creature stats
    • Spell Penetration
    • Expertise
    • Armor Penetration
    • Dodge
    • Parry
    • Block Chance
    • Block Amount
  • Every single creature in Azeroth now has these unique stats tailored to their appearance so each encounter is unique.

The principle here is simple: if you can see unique aspects of a creature (like the armor they’re wearing, their size, or their weapons), it should MATTER. 

• If you see a Defias Bandit with two daggers, he’s going to crit you more and attack faster
• If you see a big Dire Maul Ogre with a giant 2-handed mace, it’s going to attack slower but hit you for BIG damage
• If you see a naked barbarian in nothing but a loincloth? You can be sure your physical attacks will deal much more damage to them, but he will also be fast and deal more damage to you.
• If you see a Cliffwalker in Azshara, you know it will have very slow attacks that really deal a lot of damages, and since he’s made of stone, they’ll have more armor

Here are some general changes to bring back RPG elements to Bronzebeard.

• Creatures with shields have more armor now. (Why didn’t they have more armor before?)
• Creatures with shields can now block but deal less damage
  • Block chance and value is based on the class of the creature
• Creatures who are wearing less armor, actually have less armor, attack slightly faster, and deal slightly more damage
• Creatures in the Open World can now critically strike again,  making them more dangerous and creating big gamer moments when you get chonked for a big portion of your health
• Creatures have varying chances to dodge, parry, critical strike, block based on their class, weapons, and armor
• Creatures can dodge, parry, and block again

The implications of these updates are significant:

• Now, every single one of the Original 9 Classes and every single spec has a place where it can shine: where you will be stronger than your allies and uniquely capable of dealing with challenges
• You now have opportunities to take advantage of enemies weaknesses by using spells you otherwise would have never used. 
  • As a Rogue you may use expose armor and lean more on bleeds on the creature with a shield
  • As a Hunter, you might opt to use Arcane Shot on an armored creature since it uses magical damage
  • As a Mage you’ll probably try and use Frostbolt to take down that fire elemental.

This is the beginning of creating a much more dynamic meta, where just because someone topped the meter on one encounter doesn’t mean they will on the next.

Vulnerabilities and Resistances

In addition, creatures now have vulnerabilities and resistances to elements depending on the creature, increasing the depth of how you can confront them. Resistances apply to obvious scenarios like Fire Elementals having increased resistances to Fire spells.

Creatures also now have vulnerabilities: that Fire Elemental won’t JUST have resistance to Fire spells, but also be vulnerable to Frost spells, taking increased damage from spells like Frost Bolt and Ice Lance. This doubles down on the RPG elements that make the game great.

Here’s how they work:

Full Resists (Binary Resists)

• Crowd Control spells can now be FULLY resisted: both YOU and CREATURES now have a chance to completely resist spells like Counterspell, Wind Shear, Polymorph, Fear, etc.
• Spells with a damaging component can NOT be fully resisted
  • That fire elemental will never just FULL RESIST your Fireball: it will always take SOME damage, but that damage will be reduced
  • This gives you the option to get Spell Penetration to OVERCOME creatures resistances, making this stat uniquely powerful in unique situations

Additional Spell Penetration functionality:

1. Previously, creatures had a “level based resistance”: if they were a higher level than you, they had a higher chance to resist your spells. This could previously NEVER be bypassed, even with lots of Spell Penetration.
2. Now: With enough Spell Penetration, you can bypass a creature’s resistances to deal full damage!
3. This means that Spell Penetration always has some value in PvE content
4. AND: For creatures that you would expect to need to use Spell Penetration against, it will be very good
5. This change makes Spell Penetration universally appealing all the time, and also GREAT when you really need it.

Vulnerabilities

• Creatures that should CLEARLY be vulnerable to a spell school, for example a Fire Elemental being weak to a Frostbolt, will take increased damage from that school
• This additionally extends into places that aren’t immediately obvious, but that make sense: for example, a Water Elemental will take additional damage from Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning
• This expands on the Blizzlike Resistance System to make it cool as hell

Vulnerabilities and Resistances in Raids

Vulnerabilities and Resistances are receiving additional care when it comes to Raiding to make sure they have a positive impact. Different bosses will have different resistances and vulnerabilities to create an ecosystem where certain classes shine in different scenarios. Certain classes and specializations will have a DISTINCT advantage in certain fights. 
For example, a Frost Mage is going to deal additional damage to a fire elemental like Baron Geddon or Ragnaros, creating a fight where Frost Mages in particular can really shine. Similarly, a Fire Mage or even a Flametongue-wielding Enhancement Shaman will have a unique advantage against Sapphiron or Kel’thuzad, since these creatures are frost-based. In either scenario, you’ll be able to pick up Spell Penetration to mitigate your weaknesses to ensure you can still play the way you want and deal full damage.

This helps create a diverse meta where the best class and spec will change based on the scenario. It’s not just a matter of “best DPS is best in every single fight”, there is nuance and specifics that you would expect of an RPG. On Bronzebeard, every single class and spec has a place where their particular set of skills can shine.

Immersive Gear Drops: 

On Bronzebeard, Azeroth is teeming with dangerous, unique creatures each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but what do you get for killing them?

All Creatures now have a chance to drop the gear that they’re wearing when slain! This gear will have the stats reflective of the the creature you looted it from!!!

If it is a humanoid, and you can see the equipment, you can loot it!

• If you kill a Defias Bandit, you can expect leather agility gear 
• You will find a sword on creatures wielding a sword!

• The stats on the gear are hand-tailored to the unique RPG characteristics of the creature you looted it from and reflect the unique strengths of that creature
• All stats will be available at earlier levels such as armor penetration, haste, spell penetration, expertise and more

Even Bosses drop their equipped gear:

• Adventurer’s Caches have been substantially reduced to improve immersion
  • Immersive Loot Drops and RPG Open World Items are now the primary way to gear up while playing in the Open World
• This adds 19,000 unique items with stats based on the characteristics of the creature that dropped them between all three expansions.
  • 9,000 unique items in vanilla
• This opens up a whole array of new transmogrification for you to unlock.
• This is a feature that will debut on the Bronzebeard Alpha but will eventually come to all realms.

Level Scaling Zones

In preparation for Bronzebeard, Ascension sent out a poll in a newsletter (signup for newsletter). Here were the results of that poll on whether or not the community wanted level scaling. While the majority still wanted level scaling, a portion of the community does not like it. 

By understanding why players both do and don’t want level scaling, Bronzebeard can have the best option for all players.

Upsides of level scaling:

• Being able to finish an entire quest zone without creatures becoming grey
• Getting interesting scaled up gear
• Being able to play meaningfully with friends of any level
• Vastly improved Dungeon Queue times if you decide you want a break from questing

Downsides to level scaling:

• It can feel like you’re not getting stronger
• No incentive to continue your adventure into the next zone.
• Poor scaling between different levels

On Bronzebeard, level scaling changes to better fit into classic and resolve those downsides.

Changes to Level Scaling: 

• Creatures will now trail behind your level: instead of scaling exactly to you, they will slowly fall behind your level to become green
  • This make sure you’re DEFINITELY getting stronger as you level up
    • Your chance to hit, crit, dodge, parry, block, etc. is all better on a lower level creature
    • The creature’s chance to hit, crit, dodge, parry, block, etc. is all worse when attacking you at a higher level
    • Your base HP and HP provided from gear goes up while the monster’s damage does not increase
• Additionally, dropped items now scale based on the level of the creatures not your level
  • This means you can find better, stronger loot by stepping into danger in higher level zones
• On top of that, level scaling values have been refined to just be more accurate.
  • Before, the level scaling had some BAD MATH
  • Now it has spicy new GOOD MATH
• These new level scaling changes make it clear and obvious when you should travel to the next zone
  • Higher level zones generally have more quests with better rewards, better vendors with level appropriate food and water and would make you stronger
  • While you certainly could stay in Elwynn Forest for many levels, these changes to level scaling promote going out and exploring more of the world

The changes to level scaling bring back the benefits of moving through and exploring the Open World, and eliminate the feeling of everything in the Open World feeling same-y.

• All zones have a variety of creatures in them, and those creatures could be different levels
  • i.e. Hogger was a higher level than the gnolls surrounding him
  • With the previous system, all of those creatures would be the same level, leading to the world feeling same-y.
• With the new system, higher level creatures will still feel strong relative to the surrounding creatures
  • i.e. even if you level up to beat Hogger, he’ll still be stronger than the surrounding gnolls, making the RPG elements of the game feel real and meaningful
• With the new system, you’ll actually be able to gain an advantage on these strong creatures
  • Previously, Hogger would always scale to your level: you couldn’t gain a few levels to get an advantage over him. Now you can!

These level scaling updates comes with bug fixes:

Bug Fixes & Improvements

Threat Fixes  

• Fixed threat generation for spells
• High-level players no longer out-threat lower-level tanks
• Threat was incorrectly amplified at lower levels due to a bug 
• Fixed how flat threat mods are calculated
• Now, spells scale their threat mod based on the mob’s original level.
• Resource Generation now scales to the level of which you’d expect.
• This means higher level players using innervate are no longer a permanent threat magnet.

Creature Spell Fixes  

• Creatures now use base mana costs instead of percentage-based calculations 
• Hybrid mobs deplete mana faster, relying on melee after going OOM  
• Caster mobs sustain longer casting patterns
  • With spells now costing base mana (as they should), creatures now behave more how you’d expect, restoring the class strength and weaknesses of creatures in combat.  

Healing Fixes 

• Removed percentage-based healing to prevent extreme healing variations  
• Mobs healing bosses no longer heal for 10x more than intended  
• Low-level healing spells were too strong; now adjusted 
• Healing spells now align with intended scaling formulas
• Mobs no longer spam heals indefinitely.
• Mana restoration effects now work within reasonable limits   

Creature Spell Identity Restored  

• If a creature spell exists elsewhere and has an established identity you can expect the same behavior.
• Renew now ticks every 3 seconds instead of 1 second.
• Flash Heal remains a fast but inefficient emergency heal.
• Greater Heal & Healing Touch are now strong but balanced 

Creature Spell Damage & Healing Adjustments  

• Spell damage follows a consistent scaling curve akin to what you would expect.
• Healing no longer scales based on the target's health
  • If you pulled in a non-elite mob and it healed the boss, that heal would heal the normal mob and the boss the same percentage of health. However, in reality, the difference in heal would be magnitudes of 10x. This was not right.
    • An example is that Druids of the Fang when healing a boss healed for 3,600. When healing each other healed for 480.

Summoned Creature Scaling  

• Fixed scaling issue where summoned creatures didn’t scale properly with their summoners  
• Open-world creatures now scale appropriately

Healing Level Scaling reworked to factor in:

• Base stats  
• Gear
• Talents

Item Scaling Fixes  

Old Scaling Issues  

• In the past, low-level items received exponentially more stats when scaled up 
  • Example: Journeyman’s Pants (1 spirit at level 5 → 5 spirit at level 60) 
  • Technically a 500% increase 
• In the past, High-level items lost most of their stats when scaled down.  
  • Example: TBC items often had just 1 stat after scaling  

New Scaling System  

• Items now have an assigned "budget" for total stats  
• Stats scale proportionally within this budget  
  • The further the item scales up in levels, it becomes slightly weaker compared to items who were level relevant.
    • This still allows you to keep getting upgrades incrementally, but getting the best gear requires you to go to harder and higher level zones.
• Weaker items scale up until they reach their intended power  
• Overpowered items scale down to avoid late-game domination 
• Better balance across all level brackets
• No more insane stat jumps (e.g. Haunting Blade competing with endgame weapons)
  • Haunting Blade used to be able to compete with Zin’rokh at level 60

Stats on scaled items now follow a smoother progression curve to ensure that all gear remains viable at different levels without becoming straight up overpowered.  

Level Scaling Improvements  

• Reduced range of level scaling  
• Mobs will now trail behind you at their last green level instead of hard-scaling with you
  • This allows zones to maintain the RPG feel of ‘getting stronger’ than the zone you’re in: i.e. if you’re too weak to defeat Hogger at level 9, you can level to 13 and he’ll cap out, increasing your strength relative to him so you can defeat him without trivializing the quest so you can’t get rewards

Random Stat Items Fix  

• Random suffix items now properly display their rolled stats
• Previously, stats were hidden due to level scaling inconsistencies  

Overall Improvements  

• Restores RPG mechanics like class identity & intended item progression 
• Fixes major exploits & inconsistencies in threat, healing, and scaling 
• More balanced encounters & gear progression at all levels

During the Alpha, this new level scaling will be tested on Bronzebeard. Moving forward, level scaling in general will be repolled during different development phases.

Ascension Custom Features

Bronzebeard is the most robust classic+ server ever. It features all of the original content Ascension created for its classless realms over the past 8+ years. Every new feature, quality of life improvement, small bit of polish, or big sweeping gameplay change you love about the classless realms can be enjoyed with the original 9 classes.

• Hardcore Trials
• Prestige Mode
• Transmogrification
• Realm-Wide Achievements and Reputations
• Loot Lockout System
• Honorable Combat Zones
• Cross Faction Grouping and Auction House
• Hybrid Risk System
• Hero’s Call Board
• …and so much more

Hardcore Trials

Hardcore Trials are challenges that provide new ways to adventure and have while leveling, while simultaneously offering great rewards to make the journey worth it. Hardcore Trials imbue a sense of danger and excitement to your adventure, providing unique, exciting experiences whether you’re playing solo or with friends.

Hardcore Trials provide brand new adventures for players who want to enhance their nostalgic leveling adventure with something new. They feature specific, challenging rules that you MUST complete while leveling–from slaying certain notorious monsters to completing every vanilla dungeon in a party of 2. If you complete this set of challenges, you’ll earn stylish cosmetic rewards and END-GAME LOOT!

Completing a Hardcore Trial rewards you with a crate of end-game loot, ensuring that even if you choose a harder, longer challenge, you won’t fall behind! Hit level cap and be ready to jump into the end game. If you can complete it, that is….

There are 3 broad categories of Trials:

• Hardcore
  • 1 Life Challenges
  • Succeed and win big spoils, but die and fail the challenge
  • You can group with other Hardcore players
• Ironman
  • Solo Self-Found
  • No grouping
  • No outside help AT ALL (no trading, no mail, no auction house, etc.)
• Nightmare
  • Limited Lives
  • Massively Increased Damage Taken

There is also Adventure Mode: an Open-World focused adventure where you can increase the strength of the world.

• Adventure Mode
  • Control the difficulty of the Open World
  • Make creatures elite for a greater leveling challenge

Once you reach level cap, you’ll complete the challenge, and can either choose to stay in Hardcore Mode, or you toggle off your hardcore mode. But beware: if you die before toggling it off, you fail the challenge.

Trial Architect

The Trial Architect lets you mix and match individual challenges to create your own unique Trial to share with the community. Make a SUPER hard custom trial, then challenge other players to complete it.

• New Trials to Reinvigorate the World
• Choose your Ideal rules
  • Group
  • Solo
• Create your own Trials with the Trial Architect
• Hundreds of New Challenges
• Make the world dangerous

Prestige Mode

Lots of players LOVE the leveling adventure, and would level again if they had the chance: what if you could use it to actually gain end-game gear and progress your character? 

Now you can with Prestige Mode.

Prestige Mode allows you to make continual progress on a single character through leveling.

When you prestige, you keep everything important about your character: your items, bank, reputation, skills, professions, etc, but reset your level to level 1. This resets all of your quests and allows you to embark on a new adventure (maybe tackling a hardcore trial!) with your same character. Hit level cap again to earn a chest of end-game rewards.

You keep all the rewards you get while leveling–gold, currencies, etc–so Prestige Mode essentially allows you to progress your character while leveling. If you prefer the leveling adventure instead of running dungeons or raids, you can get end-game loot by hitting level cap again, putting control of how you play and progress in your hands.

Additionally, resetting to level 1 gives you the chance to tackle Hardcore Trials, which also offer end-game loot. With prestige and a few hardcore trials, you might be totally ready to fight Ragnaros!

Transmogrification

Bronzebeard features a fully open Transmog system where you can make any item look like any other item. There are no limits, so you can make your character look however you want and forge a unique, personal identity.

Make your Combat Rogue look like a flaming assassin!

Realm Wide Achievements and Reputations

Bronzebeard has a REALM WIDE REPUTATION and Achievement system. 

When you get an achievement or gather reputation with a faction you love, you’ll have it across your entire account. This means you only have to hit exalted once to enjoy the benefits on all characters. It also means that if you do something really phenomenal, like get a World First Title, you can show it off on any character you make.

Cross-Faction

Partner up with friends regardless of your faction! Bronzebeard features Cross-Faction grouping, guilds, parties, and more to ensure that the community can work together to overcome challenges. This makes queue times shorter and provides a wider pool of potential allies so you can do more of what you love.

Enjoy Cross-Faction:

• Guilds
• Parties
• Dungeons
• Raids
• Battlegrounds
• Arena Queues
• Auction House

Hybrid Risk System

Bronzebeard takes place entirely on a single server so that the whole population can play and thrive together. 

To account for this, players can toggle between Risk Styles at any time in a city, changing between PvE, PvP, and High-Risk PvP modes. This allows strictly PvE heroes to never worry about fighting other players, while providing the flexibility to shift and play around at any time. By the same token, it allows PvP focused adventurers to play their way while gaining the benefits of more potential allies for PvE activities like Dungeons, Raids, and even Battlegrounds.

You can toggle between any risk style you like in Capital Cities. 

PvE Mode

Become completely immune to PvP combat so you can enjoy your adventure. PvE heroes will never have to fight another player.

No Risk PvP

No Risk PVP is exactly like playing on an oldschool PvP server: you’re unflagged in faction controlled territory and become automatically PvP flagged in contested zones.

Optional High-Risk PvP

Put your gear on the line in savage PvP combat where slaying another player earns you a single piece of their equipped gear! You can also find PvP specific dungeon and raid gear off of monsters in the open world. High risk, high reward! This system is completely optional for players who love adrenaline.

The Hybrid Risk system allows the entire Ascension community to play on a single realm and get all the benefits of a large population while still playing the way you want to play. 

Progress in the Open World: The Hero’s Call Board

The Hero’s Call Board allows you to gear up for end-game in the Open World!

With the Call Board, you’ll get quests that take you into End-Game Zones like Winterspring, the Plaguelands, and Silithus. Completing these quests gets you chests of end-game gear, allowing you to progress at end game entirely in the Open World.

These Quests also serve as hotspots for players to flock to, potentially meeting new allies or new enemies (depending on your risk style!).

The Hero’s Call Board features a variety of Daily and Weekly quests. Each of these quests can be completed up to 7 times (once a day, but they stack over the week). This means that if you want to blast them out in one session, you can! Or if you want to do one a day, you can do that too.

There are several categories of Call Board Quests including Open World Quests, Dungeon quests, Raid Quests, and even High Risk PvP quests. They can also be completed with gold, so if there’s a type of quest you really don’t want to do, you don’t have to miss out on getting rewards from it. 

Call Board quests typically appear in the same general location. Every day, an area and sub-area are selected, and six quests relevant to that zone appear on the board. This helps everyone flock to the same location to group up, complete quests, and get rewards.

Expanded PvE

Delve into nostalgic dungeons and raids revitalized with new mechanics: Bronzebeard introduces a massively expanded roster of PvE activities. Nostalgic vanilla dungeons with brand new difficulties and a completely custom Mythic+ system, expanded raid mechanics, new original world bosses, events, and more.

Dungeon Scaling for ALL Dungeons

Bronzebeard introduces level scaling for ALL Vanilla Dungeons. This has a number of benefits:

• Faster queue times
  • Higher level players will be able to enter scaled up lower-level dungeons like Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep to play with lower level players while still getting loot relevant to their level
• More Dungeon Variety
  • You’ll see WAY more dungeon variety on your adventure
  • Not stuck running the same 5 dungeons at end game
• You can play with your friends regardless of level
• You’ll still get loot relevant to your level because loot scales
• You can find brand new ways to gear up your character (level 60 thief’s blade??)

You will still unlock dungeons incrementally: if you’re level 16, you won’t be able to just jump straight into Scholomance. 

New Dungeon Difficulties

Bronzebeard completely overhauls all Vanilla dungeons to fully support different difficulties:

• Normal
• Heroic
• Mythic
• Full Mythic+ Vanilla Dungeon System

Dive into Mythic Deadmines, Scarlet Monastery, Zul'farrak, and more to earn powered-up versions of that dungeon’s gear. Climb through Mythic+ in an ascending staircase of difficulty where you’ll always find a challenge.

More difficult dungeons award enhanced versions of that dungeon’s gear. This means you can get Mythic+ versions of powerful dungeons items like Ironfoe or the Hand of Justice. Find new ways to power up your hero, or try out wild new playstyles made possible by powerful gear!

New Original Dungeons

Embark into dungeons originally intended to be in Classic but that were never finished: Bronzebeard completes these dungeons to offer you a new experience with multiple levels of difficulty!

Karazhan Crypts

Deep within Deadwind Pass beneath the Tower of Karazhan lies the forgotten Karazhan Crypts. 

Originally built as a resting place for the dead, the crypts became a site of horror. Something wicked stirs in the depths, and its up to you to stop it.

This new dungeon features 4 new bosses. It will have relevant items to acquire throughout each expansion in the trilogy.

Karazhan Crypts

Future Expansion Dungeons

Bronzebeard additionally offers dungeons from future expansions that fit into the Vanilla world. Iconic future dungeons will make an appearance in Bronzebeard to enrich the lore of Azeroth, provide new challenges to face, and overall make for a more robust Classic+ experience. 

Blackrock Caverns

And that’s not all: there’s much more in the works. Bronzebeard will continue to get updates over time to expand and get bigger.

Raids

Bronzebeard offers four tiers of Raid Difficulties: 

• Normal
• Heroic
• Mythic
• Ascended

All raids are flex raids from 10-25 players, meaning you can raid no matter your group size. Additionally, all raids feature custom boss mechanics that revitalize the experience and provide a unique, tailored challenge.

Ascended is a new raid difficulty that serves as the pinnacle of PvE content. Ascended raids feature new original mechanics designed for the best players. You’ll need cooperation, skill, and an excellent group to overcome them.

Grab your guild and compete for realm firsts, in Leaderboard challenges, and more in the ultimate PvE content.

Loot Lockout System

On Bronzebeard, raid lockouts aren’t a thing: sometimes your guild might need you, or your friends might want to run a raid–or sometimes you might want to PUG a few bosses without screwing up your scheduled raid later that day.

In Bronzebeard, you’re locked to BOSSES, not the raid. This means you can enter as many new raids as you want as many times as you want, but you’ll only be able to get LOOT from a particular boss ONCE in the lockout time span. So if you run Molten Core and kill Garr once, you’ll get loot–and if your buddy then needs help killing Garr, you’ll still be able to go in and kill him, you just won’t be able to get loot from him.

Loot Lockout makes sure you can raid as much as you want while still enforcing original lockout rules. It’s designed to increase your flexibility with how you play.

• New Mechanics for Dungeons and Raids
• New Difficulties for Dungeons
  • Normal
  • Heroic
  • Mythic
  • Mythic+
• Mythic+ Dungeons
  • Vanilla Leveling Dungeons
  • Vanilla End-Game Dungeons
  • TBC Dungeons
  • Wrath Dungeons
• Raids
  • Flex Raids 10-25
  • 4 tiers of difficulty with rewards to match
    • Normal
    • Heroic
    • Mythic
    • Ascended
      • The ultimate PvE Challenge
• Leaderboards

Enhanced Raids

• Zul’Gurub

Zul’gurub, the entry raid in Vanilla, features more than just enhanced mechanics: each Specialization and class now has a corresponding enchantment from this iconic raid. For example: if you’re a Feral Druid or an Enhancement Shaman, you’ll have your own unique, fitting enchantment–and won’t be forced to settle for the Spell Power ZG enchants anymore.

• Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj

The Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, once designed to be a catchup raid, has been reborn to stand on its own. It’s been reworked to be a meaningful part of progression with new loot, sets, and set bonuses to pursue. A huge amount of work went into making this raid shine, and with new buffed items to make it desirable, you won’t want to miss it.

World Bosses

Bronzebeard features enhanced existing World Bosses and NEW Custom World Bosses to expand the Open World.

Dive into the open world and band together with other adventurers as you take on World Bosses: powerful creatures that roam Azeroth’s wilds. These bosses require large groups to take down, and reward truly epic gear when slain. On Bronzebeard, you can look forward to new gear and new challenges from World Bosses.

World Bosses award treasure to everyone who participated in their downfall, making them always worth seeking out.

Classic World Bosses:

• Kazzak
• Azuregos
• The Dragons of Nightmare
• And a BUFFED Setis
  • With custom rewards that fit into the vanilla world.

New, Original World Bosses:

These bosses have new custom spells and mechanics to challenge large groups of heroes. Take them down, and everyone who participated will earn loot! 

World Bosses add more exciting content to the Open World so that there’s always something for you to head out into Azeroth and challenge. Like all World Bosses, these two will announce their appearance in World Chat when they arrive. They are also visible on the map.

End-Game Itemization Overhaul

Bronzebeard features over 20,000 new items across the original trilogy (Classic, TBC, WotLK).

These new items include:

• Revamped dungeon items (improving items that sucked)
• Brand NEW items to outfit playstyles that didn’t have gear
• New Tier Sets for specs that didn’t have tier sets.

New Tier Sets

Ascension has introduced new Tier Sets specifically tailored for different specs. These tier sets include (but are not limited to…)

• 4 different unique Druid Sets in each tier so each playstyle is supported
• 2 different Priest Tier Sets
  • Supporting both Holy/Discipline and Shadow specs
• 3 different Shaman sets
• …and more

Vanilla WoW made strange decisions when it came to itemization, leaving certain specs unaccounted for. Bronzebeard overhauls itemization across all expansions to ensure that there are TONS of different gear options for any sort of build you’d like to play. From reworked dungeon items (like the famous Rainbow Girdle) to completely new Tier Set bonuses, and even entire new tier sets, itemization updates ensure that there is always a way to outfit your hero with powerful gear.

Additionally, there are new ways to obtain gear so you can better get your hands on powerful items.

• Global Tier Tokens

Originally, Raid Bosses dropped random pieces of tier sets. However, because these drops were random, there was a chance you wouldn’t see the piece you needed for months at a time.

Bronzebeard introduces Global Tier Tokens drops from bosses. These can be exchanged for any set piece of that slot: for example, you might find a Molten Girdle and be able to exchange it for any Tier 1 belt you desire. This makes raiding more rewarding by guaranteeing that all drops are useful.

• Horizontal Tier Progression

Lastly, once you exchange any tier token you will gain an achievement that lets you purchase tier slots you’ve already unlocked or obtained for gold. This means that once you get a Tier 1 belt for ONE of your specs, you can buy Tier 1 belts for ALL of your specs. This helps you play different specs without needing to raid to gear up every single one, giving you the flexibility to play how you want when you need to.

• Raider’s Commendations

No one likes spending two hours raiding just to take home no loot: Raiders Commendations prevent this from ever happening by making sure you’re always making progress towards the piece of gear you want.

Raider’s Commendations drop from all bosses in every raid. Collect them, and you can exchange them for raid gear. This means that even if you don’t need any gear in Zul’gurub, you can run it, collect Raider’s Coms, and trade them in for that Talisman of Ephemeral Power you’ve been eying.

In order to use Raider’s Commendations, you need to slay the boss that drops the gear you want: for example, if you want to trade them for a Choker of the Firelord, you’ll need to slay Ragnaros first. Once you do, you’ll unlock the ability to purchase items that the boss drops.

Raider’s Commendations ensure that you’re always making progress towards better gear.

• Mark of Triumph

Similarly to the well known Badge of Justice from TBC, Marks of Triumph are a currency collected from Heroic and Mythic dungeons that you can trade for gear like trinkets, rings, and necklaces. These items will be strong, and they make sure that Heroic and Mythic Dungeons stay relevant even at higher tiers of play. Collect Marks of Triumph and trade them for powerful items.

Expanded PvP

Challenge your might against other players in savage PvP combat: battlegrounds, arenas, and Optional High Risk PvP all appear in Bronzebeard. From exciting new maps to conquer to guild-vs-guild combat scenarios, there’s plenty of war left for you to wage.

New Battlegrounds

Charge into new battleground maps that offer unique twists on classic maps: Winter Warsong Gulch and Winter Arathi Basin provide interesting terrain changes to these classic maps, and serve to expand the BG’s you see when challenging other players. Meanwhile imported maps like the Temple of Kotmogu and Twin Peaks provide new battle objectives and scenery.

Arena

Dive into the arena in 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. With Solo Queue, you can queue up and participate even if you don’t have a dedicated arena team. Compete for epic PvP gear, ranking, and glory.

Bronzebeard features all the Arena Maps from TBC and WotLK, and additional maps from future expansions to enhance variety and the ways you can succeed. It even features new, original arena maps that you can master to dominate the competition.

Optional High Risk PvP

The most intense, spine tingling PvP imaginable: your gear is on the line, slaying other Heroes in the Open World lets you loot a piece of their equipped gear, and dying means dropping a piece of your own. Steal from enemies, protect allies, win infamy, and become the most feared name on the server: this is Optional High Risk PvP!

High Risk PvP is the ultimate predator-prey engagement: set off into the High Risk Open World in search of valuable crafting ingredients and Bloodforged PvP gear. 

Bloodforged PvP Gear is a PvP version of some iconic dungeon or raid piece: you can get a Bloodforged Bonereaver’s Edge, a set of Bloodforged Netherwind attire, or even a Bloodforged Azuresong Mageblade. These Bloodforged items give you increased damage and defense in PvP.

These valuable items drop from monsters, and the more you get, the better PvP items you can craft. But the real thrill starts when you find an enemy hero:

Meeting a foe in High Risk PvP is the most heart pounding experience on Ascension: your gear is on the line. Slaying an enemy hero means looting a piece of their equipped gear and several items from their bags. But dying yourself means you lose those items instead. Are you confident enough in your skills to dominate foes in PvP? Are you sneaky enough to gather valuable crafting and bloodforged gear without being caught? You can gain massive treasure whether you’re a savage wolf or a cunning fox: earn loot by slaying enemies or staying hidden and looting treasure from monsters.

Set off into the Open World, gather rare items, and make it back to town alive!

High Risk is a completely optional experience for Heroes who love the thrill of PvP. You can opt-in any time at cities.

Crow’s Cache

Gather your guild and engage in the most savage guild-vs-guild combat to compete for a chest of Bloodforged PvP gear: Crow’s Cache is a massive event that happens every so often on Bronzebeard.

This PvP World Event announces itself 30 minutes before it starts: when it does, a spectral chest spawns somewhere in the world. This chest contains a ton of powerful PvP Bloodforged Gear, and the first person to loot the chest gets it. But be warned: it takes the full 30 minutes for the chest to materialize, and that means plenty of time for your enemies to rally. Defend the spectral chest, be the first one to open it, and reap the rewards inside.

Crow’s Cache is a High Risk Only World Event, so you’ll need to be in High Risk to participate. This makes the combat even more exciting, as you have the potential to sweep tons of gear out from competing guilds.

Prove your dominance: destroy the competition and reap the rewards.

• New Battlegrounds
  • Twin Peaks
  • Temple of Kotmogu
  • Arathi Basin Winter
  • Warsong Gulch Winter
• Arena
  • 2v2 Solo Queue
  • 3v3 Solo Queue
  • New Arenas from future expansions
• High Risk PvP
  • Item Drop on Death
  • Bloodforged Gear
  • Powerful Craftables
  • High Risk Crafting
  • Honorable 1v1 Combat Zones
• Crow’s Cache
  • Guild v Guild combat

Honorable Combat Zones

Whether you’re braving the dangers of Optional High Risk PvP or just out questing, sometimes you don’t want to worry about being ganked by 4 people at once. Honorable Combat Zones are 1v1 zones where only 1v1 combat is allowed. When you attack another player, you’re locked into 1v1 honorable combat with them until one of you dies or the timer runs out. Once you slay them, you’re granted a grace period of a few seconds to rest and recover before you’re targetable again.

This ensures that fights are honorable). You’re pitting yourself against a single other player, and the strongest one survives. Thanks to the grace period, skilled fighters may be able to take on multiple enemies one after the other.

Honorable Combat Zones are particularly useful in High Risk PvP, when you truly want to pit your strength against another.

Full Time Staff

Ascension features a full-time staff and has been online for 8+ years. This ensures that Bronzebeard will not only be the most robust Classic+ experience on launch, but will continue to grow and improve over time. 

Anti Cheat Systems

To preserve the integrity of your accomplishments, Ascension and all of its realms has a robust anti-cheat system.

Conclusion

Embark on a new adventure: a fresh, new start into the world you love. Play the Original 9 Classes in classic and brand new ways and embark into a revitalized Azeroth. Progressing through the best WoW expansions, dive into years worth of Ascension’s Classic+ content, make a name for yourself, and become a legend.

Experience a MASSIVELY expanded RPG Azeroth with new RPG Stats on creatures, Immersive Loot Drops, RPG Items in the Open World, new quests, new professions, over 20,000+ new items, new spells, new rare creatures, points of interest in the Open World, new dungeons, mythic+ dungeons, enhanced raids, both new and upgraded battlegrounds and arenas, and even entirely new ways to play like Hardcore Trials or Adventure Mode.

On Bronzebeard, you’ll discover new ways to adventure in the world you love.

See you in Azeroth, Heroes. The Bronzebeard Alpha is available now.

• Bronzebeard Alpha Releases the 21st 18:00 server time
• The Bronzebeard Alpha will have staggered level caps starting at 25 to balance each bracket and get feedback on brand new content featured in this article.
• Anyone who gets either of the Alpha Founder bundles will have access to all Bronzebeard test realms until release.
• Bronzebeard Alpha Founders will get access to a discord to discuss with developers updates for the realm and give feedback on the direction.

Elune -

Bronzebeard Alpha Founder Bundle (100dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/elune/1127/bronzebeard-original-9-classless-alpha-pack/ascension-bundles

Bronzebeard Alpha Master’s Founder Bundle (200dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/elune/1174/bronzebeard-original-9-classes-alpha-master-bundle/ascension-bundles

Area 52 - 

Bronzebeard Alpha Founder Bundle (100dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/area-52/1127/bronzebeard-original-9-classless-alpha-pack/ascension-bundles

Bronzebeard Alpha Master’s Founder Bundle (200dp)

https://ascension.gg/store/area-52/1174/bronzebeard-original-9-classes-alpha-master-bundle/ascension-bundles