Ascension Team Presents:
SERPENTSHRINE CAVERNS 

Heroes! Faint beats of a pounding drum are heard inside the Coilfang Reservoir… Many heroes are beginning to enjoy their Midsummer Festival, as the festival rages on a new threat emerges. New dangers appear inside the Coilfang Reservoir where heroes have not dared to explore yet.

Serpentshrine Caverns will open up for all heroes on Flex and Flex Heroic on June 26th at 18:00 (GMT + 2) Server Time. The Ascended version of the raid will be released July 10th at 18:00 (GMT + 2) Server Time.

Customized Mechanics

Whatever difficulty you choose to conquer Serpenshrine Caverns in, each boss comes equipped with custom mechanics tuned to deliver a challenge appropriate to your chosen difficulty. Heroes of all skill levels can enter Normal Flex and begin to master the mechanics required to conquer Heroic Flex while snagging some sweet loot. Heroes looking for the ultimate PvE challenge can enter Ascended Mode and face unique custom mechanics designed to challenge even the most experienced raiders, but those who overcome this challenge will earn the greatest rewards.

Tier 5 Set Bonuses

Heroes, beginning in Tier 5, the Ascension Team will once again put their own twist on set bonuses. Heroes had expressed their love for meaningful set bonuses and with Tier 4, most set bonuses reflected back to certain abilities that pigeonholed your character into using that ability or simply not benefitting at all and even then some set bonuses were questionable in their own strengths. Curious what we have to offer? Don’t get too carried away, as we can’t show them just yet. However, we do have some notes:

• Set bonuses should feel impactful, getting that final boost from your last piece should feel worth it.
• Set bonuses will no longer punish heroes, or force them to change their build, that did not make use of specific abilities defined by the set.
• Set bonuses will feel unique while enhancing a wide variety of builds.

Arena Season 2

Serpentshrine Caverns won’t be the only thing to look forward to! Beginning on June 19th at 20:00 Server Time (GMT + 2), Arena Frenzy will start every day at 20:00 (GMT + 2) Server Time until June 26th where it will return to its normal schedule and on June 27th at 18:00 (GMT + 2) Server Time Arena Season 2 will begin! All Arena Teams’ Rating and MMR and Personal Rating, Honor and Arena Points will be reset, other items that grant arena or honor points will also be removed from players. Afterwards, heroes will be able to view the Arena Season 2 gear and strive towards the goal of obtaining a full set or even rising to the top of the leaderboard.

End of Season Rewards

Beginning in Arena Season 2, we have decided to change how the end of season rewards function. Previously it was based on requiring 2400 rating and being within the top 0.5%. While we concluded this looked good on paper, we found it unfair to players for not realizing which % of the arena bracket they fell into. In Arena season 2 the end of season rewards will go to the top 10 players in 1v1 and the top 10 players in 2v2, which you can view in-game at Gairub. This way you know exactly where you stand. To catch everyone up to speed this is how Season 1 rewards functioned:

• Season 1: Gladiator Nether Drake
  • This mount is only granted to the top 0.5% arena players at the end of the season with a minimum rating requirement of 2400.

Season 2 rewards will function as presented below:

• Season 2: Merciless Gladiator title and Merciless Nether Drake
  • This mount is only granted to the top 10 arena players in the 1v1 and 2v2 arena bracket, and the title is reserved for the top team in 1v1 and the top team in 2v2 for that arena season.

ARENA POINT CHANGES

With the release of Arena Season 2 there also will be a few changes to the Arena Point Cap System to make the system easier to understand:

• Cap Remainder Carry-Over:
  
  You will no longer miss out on arena points if you don't fully fill up your cap within a week. The remaining points will now carry over to your next cap.

^{[Example]: At the end of the weekly distribution you have an arena cap of [300/1000].
The remainder of 700 points will get added to your next weeks cap.}

• Bonus Cap Points:
  
  Player's that fully fill up their cap will now receive a bonus to their next week’s cap. The bonus is calculated by taking your highest arena rating (from 2v2 or 3v3) and adding every rating point above 1500 to that cap.

^{[Example]: Your highest arena rating is 2000. You will get a bonus of 500 arena points added to your next cap if you fully fill up your cap!}

• Catch-up for new Characters:
  
  Character's created within the arena season will also benefit from these changes. If you level a character and it hits level 70 after the arena season has started it will now get all previously missed out cap points.

^{[Example]: With 3 weeks into Season II your character hits Level 70. You will now have an arena cap of [0/3000]. 
Note that the maxmimum amount of the arena cap is [x/4000] points.)}

Developer Notes:

With these changes new characters should be able to catch-up mid-season, while also giving characters that played throughout the season an advantage. Changing the remainder that carries over from 80% to 100% will no longer put characters at a double disadvantage, missing out on 20% of points and also not being able to receive bonus cap.

Pets from Ascended Mode:

Following a similar tradition from the most recently released Ascended Raid: Magtheridon’s Lair. Heroes on Area-52 can obtain the Ascended (10 player) Realm First Lady Vashj pet from being the first to kill every boss inside the raid on the Ascended (10 Player) mode. Meanwhile Heroes on Wildhammer obtain the Ascended (25 player) Realm First Lady Vashj pet from being the first to kill every boss inside the raid on the Ascended (25 Player) mode.

Wrapping things up

Attunements will not be required to enter in the Flex or Flex Heroic versions of Serpentshrine Caverns, furthermore on June 26th, the Smoldering Ember Wyrm will no longer have a 100% chance to drop from Ascended Karazhan and it will be significantly decreased. Last but certainly not least, on the release of Serpentshrine Caverns, G'eras will have new gear for heroes to stock up on.

Heroes have until June 26th to prepare for the opening of Serpentshrine Caverns. The Ascended version of the raid will be released July 10th at 18:00 (GMT + 2) Server Time.