The Future of Custom WoW

Heroes,

Season 9, Chapter 3 is coming, bringing with it enormous updates. This is the first Chapter release that has something for ALL Ascension realms. Below is everything happening with Ascension Custom WoW and where each Ascension realm is going in the future:

• Elune and TBC Wildcard
• Wildcard Updates
  • MORE Scrolls of Fortune for ALL your Builds
  • Rapid Rolling
  • 110+ New Spells and Talents
  • Gabril Mewell
  • New Darkmoon Skill Card UI
  • Ability Browser
• Area 52
  • Sunwell Plateau Mythic and Ascended
  • Manastorms come to A52!
• Conquest of Azeroth
  • Class updates and changes!
• Bronzebeard: The Original 9 Class Realm
• New Player Experience Overhaul
  • Client Streaming
  • Archetypes in Character Creation
  • New Player Tutorials
  • Quest Super Tracker
  • Elune Specific - Wildcard Start
  • Starting Zone Updates
  • Ascension Compendium
  • Mentor System Overhaul
  • Ingame Build Inspect
• Karazhan Crypts
• Blackrock Caverns
• TBC Manastorms for Elune and Area 52
• New Arenas
• New Camera Settings
• Transmog Updates
• LFG Available at 10
• Client Changes
• Itemization Updates
• Wrath of the Lich King
• Vision of Hub for Classless WoW + Classic+ Experience

The Vision: A HUB for Custom WoW Realms

In the past, Chapters have been updates primarily for seasonal realms. With Chapter 3, and moving forward into the future, you can expect to see new chapters as an opportunity to push changes to all Ascension realms, creating content that expands ALL ways to play simultaneously. 

• New dungeons
• New items
• New bosses
• New craftables
• New places to explore
• New rare creatures
• New professions

This is part of a larger vision to create a robust, expansive Azeroth that goes beyond Classic+ and transform Ascension into the HUB for all things custom WoW.

Ascension will grow to feature different custom realms such as Conquest of Azeroth, the Original 9 Class Realm, Wild Game Modes, Felforged, and things that haven’t been invented yet. 

Ascension is breathing new life into the world so you can enjoy it any way you want, for years to come. Join us on this epic adventure.

Elune and TBC Wildcard

Enter the Burning Crusade on Elune as a Wildcard hero and harness new power:

• Adventure to Level 70
• Roll 10 New Talents and 5 New Spells
• Challenge Outland
  • 7 Zones
  • 18 Dungeons
  • 8 Raids
• More Scrolls of Fortune
• Rapid Rolling
  • Roll up to 25 Scrolls of Fortune at once, stopping when you land on any spell or talent you choose.
  • Roll thousands of scrolls in minutes.
• Hero Architect Comes to Wildcard.
  • These builds can be loaded directly into Rapid Rerolling.
  • You can set spells and talents to Core, Optimal, and Empowering. This allows stopping Rapid Rerolls on anything that makes you stronger.
  • Drastically increases AE/TE limits to accommodate Rapid Rerolling.
• 110+ New Spells and Talents
  • Unlock NEW Archetypes
• Gabril Mewell
• TBC Manastorms for Elune and Area 52

Storm into Outland on your Wildcard Hero and adventure to level 70. As you do, you’ll unlock new power with 10 additional Talents and 5 more spells. And discover 110+ brand New Spells and Talents to roll in your wildcard builds. Discover them with more Scrolls of Fortune and a fast new way to roll: Rapid Rolling.

For the first time ever on a Seasonal Realm, experience the entirety of the Burning Crusade from start to finish: from Karazhan all the way through Hyjal Summit, Black Temple and the Sunwell Plateau, you’ll challenge Raids no Wildcard Hero has ever seen.

Your Wildcard build may be powerful, but is it prepared to challenge the Legion? Welcome to Wildcard Burning Crusade.

Wildcard Updates

Multispec and Cases of Fortune Updates:

Chapter 3 introduces more ways for you to get Scrolls of Fortune for all of your specializations no matter how many specs you’re improving.

Cases of Fortune now ALWAYS award a Scroll of Fortune to ALL of your specs: even ones you haven’t unlocked yet. 

With this update, you won’t have to pick and choose which build you want to progress into the end game, allowing for even more Wildcard builds for your journey into The Burning Crusade. Because they grant scrolls for every spec, you can now open the entire stack at once, letting you jump straight into the action.

Rapid Rolling

With so many scrolls for your specializations, you’re gonna’ need a faster way to roll them. Chapter 3 brings you a brand new way to roll scrolls SUPER FAST. 

Introducing Rapid Rolling:

Rapid Rolling is an extremely efficient way to fine-tune your build by rolling multiple Scrolls of Fortune at once, stopping only when it finds spells or talents you want.

How It Works:

• Pick spells you want to unlearn
• Pick spells you want the system to KEEP IF IT ROLLS THEM
• GO!

You'll roll 5 Scrolls at a time each time you hit the button. As you continue rolling your build, you unlocks the ability to roll even more Scrolls simultaneously: scaling quickly up to 25 Scrolls at once. 

The system STOPS when it finds one of your desired spells or talents. If you roll 25 Scrolls and the system finds what you want on the 5th roll, it stops immediately, using only 5 Scrolls—saving you the rest for future rolls.

There are several ways you can utilize this system to customize your build:

1. Select Specific Spells & Talents:
   Choose the exact spells or talents you want to learn, and the ones you want to unlearn. Rapid Rolling will only stop when it lands on a desired spell or talent, allowing for precision as you shape your build.
2. Use Suggested Spells & Talents:
   Let the system suggest abilities for you based on your current build. You can choose whether it evaluates your entire build or only your locked spells. Rapid Rolling will automatically stop when it finds spells or talents that could empower your current setup, speeding up the process of optimizing your build. This can be used with Specific Spells & Talents selected, ensuring you don’t pass a potentially empowering roll!
3. Import Hero Architect Builds:
   You can import entire Hero Architect builds into Rapid Rolling. These builds include Core Spells, Optimal Spells, and Empowering Spells. The system will automatically select all the spells you want to learn and mark those not in the build for unlearning. As you refine the build, you can choose to reroll only Empowering Spells, preserving your Optimal ones. This allows you to continuously evolve toward a more specific playstyle while still improving along the way.

Speed & Efficiency:
Rapid Rolling dramatically speeds up the rerolling process. A fresh max-level build can roll through 1,500 Scrolls in just 5 minutes, stopping on what you want and rerolling what you don’t, allowing you to experiment with new strategies and optimize your build quickly, spending more time playing instead of rolling.

Important Note:
While Rapid Rolling allows you to roll more Scrolls at once, it does not increase your chances of finding the specific abilities you’re looking for—it just gets you there faster!

Prestige Updates:

Prestige now awards more Scrolls of Fortune for every consecutive prestige. For Heroes who enjoy leveling up to progress their builds, this change will allow for deeper wildcard progression via Prestiging. Put simply, each time you prestige you’ll get more scrolls of fortune than you got before!

Scroll of Fortune Buy-back for Marks of Ascension

Heroes, have you ever poured countless Scrolls of Fortune into a build, only to find yourself moving on to a new one? Previously, that effort felt like it was lost when you Prestiged. But with Chapter 3, Ascension is introducing a game-changing update: the Scroll Buyback system.

This feature allows you to re-purchase your Scrolls of Fortune with Marks of Ascension, preserving your investment through Prestiges. Now, your time spent earning Scrolls from Manastorm, Battlegrounds, Daily Quests, and more will be permanent progress.

What’s Changing?

In the past, when you Prestiged, only your Silas Scrolls of Fortune (earned through Silas Darkmoon’s quest chain) were reset, while other Scrolls, like those from Cases of Fortune, were lost forever. This made it hard to reset a build without feeling like you were sacrificing valuable progress. That’s no longer the case.

How It Works:

• Scrolls earned through Silas Darkmoon’s quest chain will still reset when you Prestige because his quest chain resets.
• Bonus Scrolls earned from Prestige will also be automatically restored, so you don’t have to worry about buying those back, you already get them every prestige!
• Scrolls from other sources, like Cases of Fortune, can now be bought back, whether or not you’ve used them.

For example, if you earn 1,000 Scrolls from Cases of Fortune and only use 500, when you Prestige, you’ll still have all 1,000 Scrolls available for buyback—your unused 500 will remain intact, and the 500 you spent can be bought back.

Permanent Progress:

Once a Scroll enters your Buyback pool, it stays there—even through future Prestiges. If you Prestige, buy back 500 Scrolls, then Prestige again, the Buyback pool will still show all 1,000 Scrolls, ensuring you never lose progress.

This update allows you to enjoy the freedom of resetting builds while maintaining your investment, making every Case of Fortune you open a guaranteed step forward.

With the Scroll Buyback feature, you can Prestige confidently, knowing that your time and effort spent collecting Scrolls is safe. Ready to try something new? Prestige, reclaim your Scrolls, and dive back into the fray!

Hero Architect comes to Wildcard

The Hero Architect is now available, making it easier than ever to create, refine, and optimize your builds. But it’s not just about tweaking and perfecting—Hero Architect is also a powerful tool for discovering new builds and sharing your own creations with the community.

Whether you’re looking to try something fresh or dive deeper into how certain builds work, Hero Architect provides a solid foundation. By exploring pre-existing builds, you can learn the intricacies of how spells and talents synergize. This knowledge allows you to craft never-before-seen builds, giving you the expertise to experiment from a strong starting point.

AE/TE Limits Expanded for Hero Architect Builds
When using Hero Architect, you can add spells and talents beyond the achievable cap. This allows Rapid Rerolling to stop on Empowering Spells, even while you continue hunting for the Optimal Spells. It offers the flexibility to refine your build while ensuring you always land on something that strengthens your character.

The combination of increased limits and importing builds into Rapid Rerolling makes it easier and faster to get fun, strong builds off the ground and then optimize it over time, giving you full control over your character’s progression.

Hero Architect isn’t just a tool for veterans—it’s a way for anyone to explore, learn, and master the art of creating powerful builds in Ascension.

New Spells and Talents

Chapter 3 introduces 110+ new Spells and Talents to the Wildcard pool, offering Heroes brand new power  to discover, expanding existing archetypes and unlocking entirely new ones: like Frost Archers and Arcane Paladins. For Chapter 3, a major focus behind new Spells and Talents was to expand builds that didn’t get a chance to shine within Chapters’ 1 & 2, AND create entirely new archetypes to explore within the Wildcard scene. 

Here’s just a taste of the 110+ new Spells and Talents you’ll be able to find on Elune once Chapter 3 launches on October 11th!

Arcane Paladin

Frost Archer

Landshark

Glacial Burst

Overwhelm

Nether Portal

Champion’s Spear

Fulmination

Grove Shot

Stampede

Payback

Pulverize

Tyr’s Deliverance

Drakacrisp

Incarnation: King of the Jungle

Divine Steed

Infest

Touch of Elune

Cremation

Zandalari Glaive

Beam of Hatred

Ravager

Crusade Against all Evil

Eclipse Blast

Entropy

Chosen of Elune

Shadow Blades

Guardian of Ancient Kings

Ray of Frost

Odyn’s Fury

Annihilan Decimation

Duality of Sin

Conduit

Blessed Waves

Water Ascendance

Flurry of Spears

Flanking Strike

Seal of Arcane Wrath

Neltharion’s Legacy

Feral Frenzy

Hail of Arrows

Twilight Torture

Rampant Regrowth

Rampant Rejuvenation

Ursine Frenzy

Maelstrom

Go for the Heart

Reaping Gallows

Talonshrike

Voidblade

Stellar Amplification

Servant of the Old Gods

Flame Nova

Volcanic Shamanism

Big Flaming Grimfire

Elemental Reaver

Frostfire Collapse

Stormforged Edge

Coldshot

Redeeming Verdict

Judgement of Mercy

Brilliance of Faith

Boundless Salvation

First to the Fight

Bloodcurrent

Thunderburst

Fatal Vanguard

Red Sands

Frozen Vortex

To Shreds

Seismic Reverberations

Raging Riptide

Raincaller

Synergistic Light

Natural Conductor

Rupturing Void

Roaring Blaze

\

Fire Arsenal

Lava Surge

Agonizing Coil

Divine Reset

Elemental Burst

Vampiric Death

Rune-etched Bullets

Twin Fangs

Vanguard of Hellscream

Arctic Thunder

Stormfront

Thunderlord 

Primordial Ice

Harvester of Souls

Blade of the Magisters

Felheart

Systemic Shock

Molten Ammo

Icecaller

Viscera

Impending mortality

Feral Rampage

Say Your Prayers

Avatar of the Storm

Charged Ice

Goremaw’s Bite

Incessant Screams

Natural Selection

Parliament of Owls

Precision Impact

Rejuvenating Wave

Spear Mastery

Resetting Builds with Gabril Mewell 

If Balance Changes happen and they happen to affect your build, you can trust that your investment is safeguarded thanks to Gabriel Mewell. Speak to this little guy when a balance change affects one of your spells or talents, and he can reset your build: restoring every scroll of fortune you’ve ever spent on it. Get all your scrolls back, then use Rapid Rolling to dive straight into something new.

When Balance Changes happen, which also affect your build, you can trust that your investment is safe thanks to the new friendly NPC: Gabriel Mewell. 

Just speak to this little guy when a balance change hits and happens to affect one of your known spells or talents. Once you do, just provide him with the necessary salt, he’ll fix you right up: resetting your Wildcard build and restoring every scroll of fortune you’ve ever spent on it, including the Scrolls of Fortune you spent from Silas Darkmoon! Once you’ve reclaimed those salty scrolls, you choose to roll another version of your build, or perhaps something entirely new! 

Get all your scrolls back, then use Rapid Rolling to dive straight back into adventure.

New Darkmoon Skill Card UI

A new Darkmoon Skill Card UI makes it quick and easy to find the cards you like. This new UI displays more cards at once, as well as their cost and icon. There’s also a search bar, so you can easily search for what you’re looking for. It’s a quick update that makes it feel better to search for Skill Cards.

High Risk Scrolls:

If you are adventuring in High Risk in Outlands, you now have a chance to find Cases of Fortune from monsters. Every monster in high risk has a chance to drop them but the chance is increased further if:

• You’re alone
• You’re in a Higher Tier Zone
• You’re fighting particularly deadly monsters

If you’re an absolute sigma chad gamer, you can scrollmaxx™ by fighting the hardest monsters in High Risk in a Tier 3 zone. Of course, you might have to contend with other dangers… 

No Risk Scrolls:

Last but not certainly not least for Wildcard updates: the Open World now offers a direct form of Wildcard build progression! 

You now have a chance to find Cases of Fortune from creatures you slay, within the Open World. The chance to receive one is based on the strength level of the creature you kill, here’s a quick breakdown of what makes a creature stronger:

Creatures have a higher chance to drop Cases of Fortune when:

• The creature is a higher level
• The creature has more health
• Or the creature deals a lot of damage

With this simple change, Heroes can now collect this precious progression tool in yet another unique way, further expanding the ways you can play, and progress your build in Wildcard!

TBC Updates

Scaled TBC Dungeons 58-70

With Chapter 3, all TBC Dungeons now scale from 58 to 70. This means you can queue for dungeons like The Steamvaults, The Shattered Halls, and Shadow Labyrinth as soon as you hit the Outlands. Or alternatively, if you’re level 70 and decide to queue a random normal dungeon, you can expect to find relevant loot from every dungeon, even ones like Hellfire Ramparts, with items now being scaled up to your level! 

Not only this, you can also expect to see faster dungeon queues while leveling up from level 58 to 70, as you’ll be able to queue with anyone within that level range. Additionally, this will also improve variety within your normal dungeons queues. If you regularly queued up for RANDOM normal dungeons, you’d often receive a focus on lower level ones, such as Hellfire Ramparts, as that’s where most players would start their journey from 58 to 70, no-longer will this be the case!

Here’s some examples of the freshly level scaled gear!

Level 58

Level 70

Massive TBC Itemization Overhaul

Ascension has a LOT of ways to play and make builds, and every single one of them values stats differently.

However, original TBC items aren’t robust enough to account for the diverse amount of builds on playstyles on Ascension: they don’t have enough combinations of different stats, and many lack depth or are just worse versions of other items.

To ensure that you have the perfect set of gear for whatever build you want to play, a massive Itemization Overhaul to ALL TBC items goes out with Chapter 3. 

This is a complete overhaul to every item in TBC, diversifying items to cover a wide range of stat types, and creating new effects that promote unique playstyles. You can expect to see underwhelming items re-designed, or pointed towards a particular niche that’ll support a previously difficult to find gear sets.

• New Dungeon Sets
• Updated Dungeon Sets Bonuses
• Updated weapon DPS formulas
  • Results in a buff for almost all TBC weapons.
• Updated spell power of weapons
  • Results in a slight net increase on average.
• Items more fitting to their stat budget, as a rough approximation, 80% of items were buffed with 20% of the items having stat distributions shifted or slightly nerfed.
• A handful of items (mostly in the Mythic+ setting) had their stats shifted and repurposed. The items chosen were often worse versions of items that did already exist.
  • Mostly into hard-to-find stat combinations of items, allowing you to play the way you want to play.

Reputation Gear Overhaul

Reputation Gear is an essential part of TBC: it’s something you can do on your own or with friends to acquire powerful gear at your own pace. However, current Reputation Gear quickly falls behind other gear, making your journey to reach exalted with the iconic TBC factions, feel lackluster. Now, you can expect to see items that are rewarding based on the time spent to obtain them!

 

• Reputation Gear is being upgraded to be a more useful and powerful part of your progression.

Reputation Gear Item Levels

• Honored: Ilvl 115, up from 80
• Revered: Ilvl 123, up from 110
• Exalted: Ilvl 127, up from 110

For Comparison:

• Normal Karazhan: Ilvl 115
• Normal Magtheridon: Ilvl 125
• Normal Gruul: Ilvl 125

While reputation grinds will always be an optional feature for gear progression, this upgrade to reputation items will make the adventure feel more worthwhile.. In addition, since Reputation is account-wide on Ascension, this gives your alts a quicker way to access great gear, further expanding the ways you can play how you want.

Prestige Cache Updates

New improvements are coming to Prestigious Caches, enhancing their value and allowing them to serve as a form of endgame progression!

Previously, the gear offered by Prestigious Caches was frankly not very good, often random, and didn't provide a clear path for progression.

Now, when you open a Prestigious Cache, you will be guaranteed to receive an item from the current Raid Tier. Not only that, but you can also expect to see more items included—like the rings from Magtheridon or the necklaces from Kael’thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep—that were previously not part of the loot pools. With these changes, you can more effectively use Prestigious Caches to supplement your endgame gearing or your alts as you can now mail these caches between your characters!

Improved Experience Bonuses

Items that provide Experience Bonuses have been overhauled with Chapter 3. Most experience modifiers are now additive rather than multiplicative, and each has been buffed individually. This means you can still Impactbenefit without having the exponential bonus when you have ALL modifiers stacked together allowing each bonus to feel uniquely impactful.

Before experience bonuses had to be balanced around the best use case scenario for them and were not actually strong or fulfilling when used without all the other modifiers. One goal for Chapter 3 was to improve this facet. All experience boosts are now an additive boost (with the exception of the Prestige Aura, more on that below) and are now stronger standalone and when prestige. One example here is that Hotspots were monumentally better for someone with all of these boosts instead of just being good all the time for everyone.

• Recruit a friend now provides 300% bonus experience from 200%.
• Hotspots now grants 150% bonus experience from 50%.
• Potion of Experience now grants 150% bonus experience from 100%.
  • The buff granted via potions of experience in battlegrounds is now 8% from 3%.
• Aura of Experience now provides 350% bonus experience from 200%.
• Heirlooms now grants 10% bonus experience (from 3%) and 20% on 2 handed weapons (from 6%)
• Prestige Aura is still a multiplicative effect further increasing the effectiveness of these buffs by 35% and providing 35% more experience as well.
  • This is buffed from 20%.

TBC Manastorms

Leap into the portal and surge into new adventures as TBC enters the Manastorm. As wild magic sweeps through 15 TBC dungeons and 5 new CUSTOM BOSS ENCOUNTERS, you can experience the Manastorm on both Elune and Area 52. For the first time ever, challenge the Manastorm as a Free Pick Hero–putting your build to the test as you enter the storm on Area 52. Then, Wildcard Heroes can continue to face the tempest with new dungeons and encounters as Elune moves into TBC.

TBC Manastorms introduce 15 Burning Crusade Dungeons. In addition, there’s 5 completely new encounters for you to discover. As always, Manastorm Dungeons scale to your level, allowing you to encounter them at any point in your adventure: storm the Hellfire Ramparts at level 20, dive into the Underbog at 31, and face down new encounters that bring a unique spin to your leveling journey. The best part? 

TBC Manastorms come to both Elune and Area 52, so you can now explore the storm across ALL Ascension realms. Whether you’re a seasoned hero or new to the chaos, now is your chance to gather your allies, fill up your potions, and leap headfirst into the storm.

• 5 New Custom Boss encounters in the Manastorm 

• 15 Burning Crusade Dungeons Introduced
• TBC Creatures are now in the pool
• 5 New Custom Encounters
• Gear from the manastorm cache is changing.
  • You can now only get gear from the previously released raid.
    Example: You can only get Karazhan Gear Normal/Heroic once Gruul’s Lair is out.
  • Mythic Raid Gear is only available from the previous tier
  • Example: You can only receive Mythic Karazhan Gear once Serpentshrine Caverns is out.
• Manastorm Levels are reset once Elune goes into TBC.
• Alva will be available with a level 70 loot at level 1000

Elune TBC Updates

Isle of Quel'danas and Magister’s Terrace

Finally, to close out major changes coming to Elune for Chapter 3, you can expect to see the Isle of Quel’danas as well Magister’s Terrace available on day 1! This means that Heroes can access daily quests and additional activities throughout the island, without having to wait for progression to Sunwell Plateau! This allows Heroes an early taste of what’s to come once Elune reaches Sunwell, and faces off against Kil’Jaeden and his forces!

Elune Balance Updates

**This is not the end of the article there is a lot more after this**

• Elune] - Fixed a bug where Grace applied through Graceful Prayers was lasting 12 seconds instead of 8.
• [Elune] - Prayer of Preservation now only applies Grace on its final heal.
• [Elune] - Blessing of the Divines now has a 10% chance to trigger down from 35%.
• [Elune] - Blessing of the Divines - Blessing of the Titan now reduces the damage taken by 5% down from 10%.
• [Elune] - Blessing of the Divines - Blessing of the Titan now increases Target's Health by 5% down from 10%.
• [Elune] - Fixed a bug where Prayer of Preservation’s Preserving Light was proccing twice. 
• [Elune] - Vampiric Bond now Increases the healing received from your Vampire lord by 150% from 25%. Unholy Light now also benefits from Vampiric Bond.
• [Elune] - Vampiric bond lasts 10 seconds down from 16 seconds.
• [Elune] - Unholy Light has been reworked. It is now using a charge system, with a max of 5 charges and a 60 second recharge timer.
• [Elune] - Unholy Light now also has a new effect - Shadow Damage has a 20% chance to restore 1 charge.
• [Elune] - Increased the base healing and scaling of Unholy Light by 100%.
• [Elune] - Unholy Light now requires spirit primary stat allocation.
• [Elune] - Beacon of shadow now transfers Unholy Light healing.
• [Elune] - Reduced the healing of Vampire Lord by 50%.
• [Elune] - Blooming Shot (heal), Medicinal sting, Grove Medicine are now treated as Ranged Abilities instead of Spell. This means they scale from Ranged Critical Chance and it's Critical strike multiplier has been doubled.
• [Elune] - Blooming Shot has it's damage and healing reduced now by 50%
• [Elune] - Blooming Shot duration to gain Nature's Power has been increased to 12 sec from 5 sec.
• [Elune] - Blooming Shot has a new effect. Casting Steady Shot now reduces the time to gain Nature's Power by 1 sec.
• [Elune] - Blooming Shot cast with Nature’s Power now has 200% increased damage and healing from 100%.
• [Elune] - Synchronize now has 2 charges.
• [Elune] - Synchronize healing has been reduced by 40%.
• [Elune] - Cauterizing Fire now lasts 8 sec down from 14 sec.
• [Elune] - Fire Fire Fireheal now lasts 8 sec down from 14 sec.
• [Elune] - Cryotherapist now works Ice Lance.
• [Elune] - Rejuvenating Swiftness now increases the healing done by Rejuvenation for 10sec.
• [Elune] - Rejuvenating Swiftness now has a new effect. Swiftmend now reduces the cooldown of your Spirit of the Forest by 5 sec.
• [Elune] - Fixed bug where Divine Favor was affecting Unholy Light.
• [Elune] - Reduced the base healing and scaling of Blooming Growth by 20%.
• [Elune] - Destructive Bargain can now be triggered and will benefit Soul Fire.
• [Elune] - Shiv and Ambush can now trigger Dark Intent.
• [Elune] - Cruel Night now increases the duration of your Gloomblade by 50%.
• [Elune] - Arugal's Tainted Arcanum now increases the damage the target takes from your Unstable Affliction by 150%. Up from 110%.
• [Elune] - Triggering Teachings of Arugal now also increases the damage of your Shadow Missiles by 50%.
• [Elune] - Edge of Fury disables killing spree (normal and triggered one) from teleporting you. It will still correctly deal its damage.
• [Elune] - Frozen Embers from Splintered Chaos can now stack up to 4. Down from 7.
• [Elune] - Frost Pulse can now be triggered by Ray of Frost.
• [Elune] - Ice Barrage can now be triggered by Ray of Frost.
• [Elune] - Triggering Nightfall's Promise now also extends the duration of your Rupture by 2 seconds.
• [Elune] - Doubled the scaling of Water Bolt from Summoned Water Elemental.
• [Elune] - Glacial Pact now increases the damage your Summoned Water Elemental deals against monsters and his spell critical strike chance by 100%.
• [Elune] - Insatiable now increases the damage gain for Overpower from Taste for Blood by 10%.
• [Elune] - Insatiable now has a new mechanic: Casting Overpower will reduce the Cooldown of Demolishing Strike by 10 seconds.
• [Elune] - Decreased the scaling of Lava Sweep by 10%.
• [Elune] - [Critical Serration] - The bleed extensions from Critical Serration no longer requires the caster to be affected by Rapid Killing or Rapid Fire.
• [Elune] - [Toxic Surge] - Casting Rapid Fire in addition to Scorpid Sting now grants Toxic Ammo.
• [Elune] [Clean Pass] - Triggering Clean Pass no longer requires the caster to be affected by Rapid Killing or Rapid Fire. Clean Pass now causes 150% of the targets accumulated Piercing Shots, down from 200%.
• [Elune] - Warcry now increases the critical strike chance by 15%. Down from 20%.
• [Elune] - Master of Arms now increases your Armor Penetration Rating by 4% of your Strength per stack, down from 5%.
• [Elune] - Battle Fatigue now increases the physical damage the target takes by 8%. Down from 10%.
• [Elune] - Battle Charge now deals 70% weapon damage down from 250%.
• [Elune] - Draconic Might now increases melee and ranged critical strike chance and haste by 3%.
• [Elune] - Demolishing Strikes now increases your armor penetration rating by 10%.
• [Elune] - Devouring touch now increases the damage of your next Devouring Plague by 35% per stack. Down from 50%.
• [Elune] - Titanic Strike now deals 10% more damage if you are attacking with two-handed weapon. Down from 20%.
• [Elune] - Titanic Mutilate now deals 10% more damage if you are attacking with two-handed weapon. Down from 20%.
• [Elune] - Titan's Fury now increases your Physical damage by 8%. Down from 15%.
• [Elune] - Contagious now increases the damage of your Diseases by 6%. Down from 10%.
• [Elune] - Pestilent Opportunist now increases the damage of your Diseases by 5%. Down from 10%.
• [Elune] - Double-clawed now increases the potency of your Tiger's Fury by 30%. Down from 100%.
• [Elune] - Stormgarde now hits 3 additional targets, down from 5.
• [Elune] - Lightning Blade now increases the damage of Thunder Clap by 100%, down from 150%.
• [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Frost Pulse on the main target by 40%.
• [Elune] - Dark Winter now lasts 10 seconds. Down from 15 seconds.
• [Elune] - Corrupted shiv now also refreshes Shadow Word: Pain.
• [Elune] - Seething Growth is now generated upon consuming Hate, instead of when Hate is generated.
• [Elune] - Doubled damage and scaling of Bloody Maelstrom.
• [Elune] - Bloody Maelstrom can now stack up to 5 stacks, each stack further empowers the damaging proc by 50% against monsters.
• [Elune] - Bloody Maelstrom now requires 5 stacks of maelstrom weapon to be consumed
• [Elune] - Unseen Assassin now also increases damage done to monsters by affected spells by 25%.
• [Elune] - Toss and Throw now affects 3 next spells. Up from 2.
• [Elune] - During Master of Kunai, your Shuriken Toss reduced the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush by 3 seconds. Up from 1 second.
• [Elune] - Healing Garden can now trigger from Blessed Waves.
• [Elune] - Infused Energy now has 1 charge, and gains a 15/30/45% damage increase, and 15/30/45 energy reduction per stack.
• [Elune] - Wrath can now also trigger Astral Fusion.
• [Elune] - Wrath of the Sun now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath by 30%.
• [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Frost Pulse on the cleaved targets by 100%.
• [Elune] - Slice and Ices energize effect has been increased to 40 energy over 8 seconds.
• [Elune] - Arc Aim Shot - Now has 3 stacks, down from 5. Now increases the damage of Arcane Shot by 25%, up from 15%.
• [Elune] - Increased the damage of Arcane Aiming by 30%, and it now generates 6% of the casters mana, up from 3%.
• [Elune] [Locust Resurgence] - Can now be triggered by dealing damage with Toxic Surge.
• [Elune] - Inner Flame proc now also enables your Holy Fire to chain to 2 nearby enemies.
• [Elune] - Pyrolysis now also increases critical strike damage bonus and now also affects Incinerate in addition to Soul Fire.
• [Elune] - Raging Fire Nova now also reduces the cooldown of Fire Nova by 2 seconds.
• [Elune] - Starburst Barrage now increases its damage by 100% each tick.
• [Elune] - Arcane Motes now also increase the damage of Arcane Explosion by 5% per stack.
• [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Lunar Spirits by 100%.
• [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Lunar Burn by 1000%.
• [Elune] - Sinister Flurry triggered damage now hits all enemies in a cone.
• [Elune] - Increased base damage and scaling of Barrage Overload by 30%.
• [Elune] - Accelerated Ascension now also increases the damage of your Holy Fire damage over time by 50%.
• [Elune] - Ragefire Cleave now has 6 stacks, each stack increases melee attack speed by 2% down from 3%.
• [Elune] - Ragefire Cleave now triggers on 6 stacks and its damage has been increased by 100%.
• [Elune] - Piercing Cleaver's cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6.
• [Elune] - Piercing Cleaver now stacks up to 5 times, up from 3.
• [Elune] [Area-52] - Fixed a bug causing Thrust to deal lower damage then intended.
• [Elune] - Mutilate now deals 5% increased damage for each of your Poisons on the target. Changed from flat 10% on poisoned targets.
• [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing high Goldrinn's Focus stacked Mind Flays to not always generate the proper amount of Soul Fragments.
• [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing Goldrinn's Fury cooldown reduction to not always work properly with Mind Flay on high stacks of Goldrinn's Focus.
• [Elune] - Assault and Battery can now be triggered by Shield Slam.
• [Elune] - Shield of the Emperor no longer triggers Avatar, it now extends the duration of your next Avatar by 2 seconds stacking up to 5 times. If Avatar is already active it also extends the duration by 3 seconds.
• [Elune] - [Shattering Slam] - Reaching 10 stacks of Seething Growth now also increases the critical damage and critical strike chance of your next Sundering or Ground Slam by 25%.
• [Elune] - [Seismic Spite] - Lava Lash, Ice Lash, Lava Sweep, Sundering now all grant 1 charge of Hate. Upheaval and Ground Slam still grant 2 charges.
• [Elune] [Biting Drain] - Now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Drain Soul in addition to Drain Life by 35%.
• [Elune] [Harvest Essence] - Death Coil can now trigger Harvest Essence.
• [Elune] - Elemental Destruction now increases the duration of your Flame Shock by 50%.
• [Elune] - Conductor now also affects Lava Burst and additionally increases the damage done to monsters by 40% per stack.
• [Elune] - Frostflame Shock now lasts 18 seconds and its cast time was reduced to 1.5 second. Changed from 12/2 sec respectively.
• [Elune] - Wacky Wizardry,Eccentric Elementalist,Deranged Druid,Crazy Cultist,Zany Zealot now have a 15% chance to trigger.
• [Elune] [Biting Cold] - Now stacks up to 3, down from 5. It now increases the critical strike chance of Ice Lance by 8% per stack, up from 5%. And increases the damage of Ice Lance by 17% per stack, up from 10%.
• [Elune] - Flame Born now also increases the periodic damage of your Shadowflame by 15%.
• [Area-52] [Elune] - [Honed Ice] - Now increases both melee and ranged critical strike chance.
• [Elune] [Prophet of Wrath] - Crusader Strike and Divine Storm now also extend the duration of Divine Illumination by 2 seconds.
• [Elune] [Razor Claws] - Now grants 2% Physical damage per stack, up from 1%.
• [Elune] - Divine Wrath now increases the damage of your next Smite or Holy Fire by 30%. Up from 15%.
• [Elune] - Loa's Assault now deals 175% weapon damage. Up from 160%.

Area 52 TBC Updates

Sunwell Plateau

Enter the Sunwell, hero: TBC’s ultimate raid awaits you on Area 52. Joining forces with the Shattered Sun Offensive, you can tackle the Sunwell on both Normal and Heroic difficulty right now.

Mythic and Ascended difficulties are just on the horizon. 

All difficulties feature a brand new custom boss, with Mythic and Ascended featuring additional new mechanics that merge seamlessly with original ones. 

There’s also a custom mount to discover, as well as a title for Ascended difficulty.

Enter the Sunwell Plateau, Hero, and bring the Legion’s Burning Crusade to its end.

Area 52: Release of Mythic levels 31-35

With Sunwell Plateau's release, a new wave of powerful gear makes its way to Area52. Jump into Mythic+ plus and you’ll be able to find Mythic Gear from Levels 31 to 35 on Area-52, November 9th!

Area-52 Balance Updates

There are more big changes after this it isn’t the end of the article, keep going!!

Balance Changes that went live with Sunwell’s Launch:

• [Area-52] - [Elune] - Mace Specialization (warrior) has been redesigned. It is now a 5-point talent and increases your melee attack power by 1% and armor penetration by 3% per point. It no longer provides a random stun.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - Fixed a bug causing Ranged Abilities with a cast time to not sync to their tooltip cast time, and in some cases not properly benefit from ranged attack speed increases. This affects Steady Shot, Locust Shot, Big Game Shot, Compound Shot, Syndicate Sniper Shot and will end up as a 5-10% attack speed increase baseline. This bugfix will be going live before Sunwell releases.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Improved Stings] - Now increases the damage of Serpent Sting by 6%, down from 8%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Multi-Shot] - Multi-Shot now hits 5 targets baseline. Focused Burst has not had its base amount of projectiles increased.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Multi-Shot] - Increased the weapon damage of Multi-Shot from 130% to 140%
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Siegebreaker] - Now deals 300% weapon damage to the main target, up from 250%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - Soulfire now costs 20% of your base mana, up from 9%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Shredding Blows] - Now grants 4/8/12% armor penetration per rank, down from 5/10/15%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - The physical damage reduction gained from the Enveloping Shadows talent has been reduced from 3/6/10% while Ghostly Strike is active to 2/4/6% while Ghostly Strike is active.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - The T6 Warrior Block set has had its 3-set bonus changed. The increase in damage reduction from your Critical Block talent has been reduced from 10% to 8%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Titan's Grip] - Now increases off-hand hit chance by 5%, down from 10%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Wild Quiver] - Increased the damage of Wild Quiver Shot to 60%, up from 45%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Windfury Weapon] - Now deals 30% increased damage against monsters while wielding a single two-handed weapon, or while using Hoplite
• [Elune] - Fixed an issue where Shadowflame Claws was not locked to Dark Apotheosis stance. It will now require you to be in the Dark Apotheosis Stance to gain its benefits.
• [Area-52] - [Warden of Demonreach] - Frostbolt and Ice Lance will now generate Winter's Mantle stacks on cast instead of on hit. Fire Blast and Fireball will now generate Gathering Will stacks on cast instead of on hit. Arctis and Fuego will still need to hit the target to swap the buff.
• [Area-52] - [Zephyr] - Now increases the chance to trigger Windfury Weapon by 1% per stack, down from 2% per stack.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - Ashtongue Talisman of Swiftness now increases its haste rating by 2 per difficulty. It will now grant 22/24/26/28, changed from 22/25/28/31 on Normal / Heroic / Mythic / Ascended difficulties respectively.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - The threat increase on Blessed Weapons has been increased from 2/4/6% to 3/6/10% and now only works while you are in a tank stance. The increased damage on Blessed Weapons has not been altered and will remain the same as it was before.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Divine Aegis] - Now absorbs up to 10% of the target's maximum health, changed from 35%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Divine Aegis] - Overheals now only grant 25% absorb value.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Elemental Weapons] - Lowered Elemental Weapons damage increase for Windfury Weapon to 10/20/30%, down from 15/30/45%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Flurry] - Now increases attack speed by 3/6/10% per rank, down from 5/10/15%.
• [Area-52] - [Elune] - [Heavy Munitions] - Added an extended tooltip to Heavy Munitions to clarify that the attack speed effects do not affect Steady Shot or any of its transformations, or Aimed Shot or any of its transformations.
• [Area-52] - [Shield Finesse] - The boost from Shield Slam to your Critical Block talent has been reduced from 15% to 12% for 4 seconds.
• [Area-52] - [Son of Gruul] - Reduced the damage of Ground Slam by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Son of Gruul] - Reduced the weapon damage of Upheaval from 300% to 290%.
• [Area-52] - [Sweeping Swings] - Now grants 2% melee critical strike chance, down from 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Razor Claws] - Now increases the damage of Bloodthirst by 8% per stack, down from 10% per stack.
• [Area-52] - [Rupture] - Increased the damage of Rupture by 30%. This is the update that already went out on Elune.
• [Area-52] - [White Walker] - Fixed a bug causing Ice Lance (White Walker) to not benefit from the Shatter capstone.
• [Area-52] - [White Walker] - You now learn Ice Spear if you know Ice Lance. Ice Spear is an empowered Ice Lance that always critically strikes, and generates 1 stack of Howl of Winter. Your spells and ability casts have a chance to enable a cast of Ice Spear while affected by Slice and Ice.
• [Area-52] - [White Walker] - Lowered the damage of Winds of Winter rank 5 and 6 by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [White Walker] - The energize effect from Slice and Ice has been renamed to Winter's Vitality and now grants 40 energy over 8 seconds.
• [Area-52] - [White Walker] - Howl of Winter now stacks up to 4 times, and increases the damage of Deep Freeze by 50% per stack, down from 66%.
• [Area-52] - [Wind Rager] - Doom Winds now only increases the chance to trigger Windfury by 10% with Titan's Grip active.
• [Area-52] - [Wind Rager] - Wind Rager now reduces the benefits of Titan's Grip by -8%, up from -5%.
• [Area-52] - [Wind Rager] - Rampant Tornado no longer increases melee attack speed. It now increases the damage of Whirlwind, Wind Strike, and Hurricane Strike by 40% against monsters, and 10% against players
• [Area-52] - [Paratrooper] - Target Spotted now increases the damage taken from the caster by 8%, down from 12%.
• [Area-52] - [Taste of Success] - Reduced the physical damage reduction from 60% to 50% on the next hit.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - No longer increases healing done by Healing Wave by 40%.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Tidecaller's Gift now affects all nature HoTs, but its effect has been reduced to 2% per stack, down from 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Tidecaller's Gift is now gained through critical healing with Healing Wave.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Rejuvenation casts now grant 1 charge of Tidal Waves.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Nature Healing Over Time effects now have a 20% chance to reduce the cooldown of Healing Rain by 1 sec.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Tidecaller's Boon has been updated; It now triggers from casting Healing Rain instead of Healing Wave.
• [Area-52] - [Tidecaller] - Tidecaller's Boon now increases the Healing done by the caster's Healing Over Time effects on the target by 10%. Stacks up to 4, and lasts 8 seconds. It no longer gets consumed, and no longer reduces the output of Healing Wave.
• [Area-52] - [Titanic Finale] - Now increases the attack speed increase from Enrage by 5%, changed from increasing the Physical damage percentage of Enrage.
• [Area-52] - [Total Eclipse] - Total Eclipse increases the damage of your Moonfire and Insect Swarm by 40% and their duration by 3 seconds. Changed from just damage increase of 30%
• [Area-52] - [Total Eclipse] - Increased the Critical Strike chance while in Solar Eclipse and Arcane damage while in Lunar Eclipse to 30%. Up from 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Infused Energy] - Fixed a bug causing some abilities to be able to generate Infused Energy stacks. As mentioned in the tooltip, only spells are meant to generate Infused Energy.
• [Area-52] - [Gurubashi Berserker] - Onslaught now increases the damage of Execute by 25% against monsters, up from 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Lava Sweep] - Eruption now triggers an Empowered Sundering, dealing increased damage but no longer disorienting targets struck or stopping auto-attack swings.
• [Area-52] - [Lava Sweep] - Doomhammer's Fury now only triggers from Flame Shock, its duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 8.
• [Area-52] - [Lava Sweep] - Doomhammer's Fury now increases the damage of Flame Shock and Fire Blast by 60%, up from 40%. It now also affects the damage over time of Flame Shock.
• [Area-52] - [Locust Ranger] - Locust Shot now deals 100% ranged weapon damage, up from 90%.
• [Area-52] - [Locust Ranger] - Casting Rapid Fire, in addition to Scorpid Sting, now grants Toxic Ammo.
• [Area-52] - [Locust Ranger] - Toxic Ammo now also increases the damage of Wild Quiver Shot by 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Locust Ranger] - Wild Locust Swarm now deals increased damage to targets affected by your Serpent Sting
• [Area-52] - [Locust Ranger] - Wild Locust Swarm can no longer hit your main target (the one it's triggered from), it will only hit other nearby targets.
• [Area-52] - [Wild Wrath] - Can now trigger from other hunter shots and stings, with a 50% proc chance. Steady Shot and Chimera Shot remain at 100% proc chance
• [Area-52] - [Midnight Flames] - Midnight Flames now increases the damage of your Pyroblast by 20% per stack, up from 19%
• [Area-52] - [Midnight Flames] - Shadow Kindling now increases the damage of your Immolate and Shadowflame by 16% per stack, up from 15%.
• [Area-52] - [Natural Synergy] - Now grants 15% critical strike chance per stack.
• [Area-52] - [Natural Synergy] - The number of stacks is now 4, down from 10.
• [Area-52] - [Natural Synergy] - Triggers only one stack per cast.
• [Area-52] - [Growing Earth] - The proc chance of Growing Earth has been increased to 25%, up from 20%, and its internal cooldown has been removed.
• [Area-52] - [Growing Light] - Now works with Flash of Light.
• [Area-52] - [Hot Hands] - Hot Hands now makes your Hot Streak grant 35% increased damage to Pyroblast, up from 30%.
• [Area-52] - [Hoplite] - Increased the base damage and scaling of Shield Strike by 90%.
• [Area-52] - [Hoplite] - Increases the damage to Colossus Smash given by Impaled debuff to 15% from 10%.
• [Area-52] - [Hoplite] - Added Flurry of Spears, a finishing move that strikes enemies in front of you.
• [Area-52] - [Hoplite] - Shield Strike now has a 3% chance per combo point to increase the damage of Flurry of Spears by 50% for 8 seconds.
• [Area-52] - [Holy Spirit] - Cooldown reduction of Penance lowered from 3 sec to 1.5 sec.
• [Area-52] - [Holy Spirit] - Cooldown reduction of Penance changed from effective heals to heals.
• [Area-52] - [Hydra's Sting] - No longer makes Serpent Sting chain, it now makes your Multi-Shot hits apply Serpent Sting.
• [Area-52] - [Frozen Chaos] - Frozen Chaos now increases the damage of your next Chaos Bolt by 65% against monsters, up from 60%.
• [Area-52] - [Frozen Chaos] - Chaos Keeper now increases the damage of your next Soul Fire by 20% per stack, up from 18%.
• [Area-52] - [New ERE] - [Glimmer of Light] - Holy Shock leaves on targets glimmer which transfers 15% of direct holy healing done to others to that target. This is increased to 30% for Flash of Light. Glimmers last 20 seconds and there can be only 3 glimmers active at a time.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of the Tides] - Now teaches a new transformation of Chain Heal called Blessed Waves. Blessed Waves is a channeled spell that releases 3 chaining bolts during its channel time. Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 40%. It scales from both Holy and Nature healing modifiers, and Chain Heal modifiers. Blessed Waves does not consume Riptide on struck targets.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of the Tides] - Blessed Waves now enables Tidal Shield instead of Penance.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of the Tides] - Critical direct healing with Shaman spells now reduces the cooldown of Blessed Waves.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of the Tides] - All functions affecting or interacting with Penance have been removed from Disciple of the Tides.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of the Tides] - Now disables the Charged Tides Mystic Enchant while equipped.
• [Area-52] - [Dragon Warrior] - Dragon Roar will now trigger Deep Wounds, and benefit from melee-specific talents and REs.
• [Area-52] - [Expunge] - Mongoose Bite and Chimera Shot can now both apply Cobra Venom to the target.
• [Area-52] - [Evoker] - Evoker now increases the damage of your Arcane Missiles and Fireball by 8% and their chance to critically hit by 4% per stack, up from 7%/3% respectively.
• [Area-52] - [Fel Corruption] - The Corrupted Maelstrom mechanic of Fel Corruption has been renamed to Rising Chaos.
• [Area-52] - [Fel Corruption] - Increased the weapon damage of Felblade to 230%, up from 220%.
• [Area-52] - [Fel Corruption] - Increased the weapon damage of Fel Cleave to 115%, up from 110%.
• [Area-52] - [Fel Corruption] - Increased the damage of Fel Infused Flames by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Fel Corruption] - Rising Chaos now increases the damage of Chaos Bolt by 62%, up from 60%.
• [Area-52] - [Arcane Gunslinger] - Arcane Gunslinger now increases the damage of Arcane Barrage by 25% per stack, up from 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Arcane Thunder Seer] - Arcane Overload is now consumed on cast, instead of on hit.
• [Area-52] - [Apostle of Eredath] - Triggering Destructive Bargain with Soulfire now requires Decimation to be active.
• [Area-52] - [Apostle of Eredath] - Destructive Bargain now lasts 8 seconds, down from 12.
• [Area-52] - [New ERE] - [Beacon of Virtue] - Applies a Beacon of Virtue onto your target and 4 most injured allies within 30 yards for 10 seconds. While active, your holy heals with a cast time (not channeled spells) will also heal those affected by your Beacon of Virtue for 25% of the original amount.
• [Area-52] - [Blood for the Blood God] - Fixed an issue causing Crimson Tempest to double dip on the modifiers from Bathe in Blood.
• [Area-52] - [Burning Darkness] - Flame Born now increases the damage of your Shadowflame by 15% per stack, up from 10%.
• [Area-52] - [Chasin' the Rush] - Reduced the attack speed granted by Chasin' the Rush from 30% to 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Compound Power] - Increased the damage of the Combo Shot Bleed by 60%.
• [Area-52] - [Compound Power] - Has a new mechanic, consuming the Improved Steady Shot capstone makes your next Steady Shot ignore 15% of the target's armor, and deal 20% increased damage.
• [Area-52] - [Curse of Arugal] - Goldrinn's Fury now increases Shadow damage by 10%, and all damage dealt by 10%, it previously increased shadow damage dealt by 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Curse of Arugal] - Arugal's Gift is now Shadow damage, changed from Shadowstrike damage.
• [Area-52] - [Curse of Arugal] - The attack power and spell power coefficient of Arugal's Gift has been reduced by 20%.
• [Area-52] - [Curse of Arugal] - Goldrinn's Focus no longer increases the damage of Mind Sear or Mind Flay, instead it increases the tick rate of Mind Flay by 25% per stack, in addition to reducing the channel time for Mind Flay and Mind Sear by 25% per stack.
• [Area-52] - [Crimson Champion] - The empowered Power Word: Shield damage reduction has been reduced from 30% to 25%.
• [Area-52] - [Crimson Champion] - Champion's Courage now has a chance when blocking an attack to lower the cooldown of Avenger's Shield by 5 seconds.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Reduced the damage of Shadow Artillery by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Shadow Artillery now increases the damage taken from the caster by 6%, down from 10%.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Blood Arrow damage-over-time spell power and attack power coefficient have been lowered by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Blood Arrow's direct hit has been lowered from 90% ranged weapon damage down to 75%.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Shadow Arrow's damage-over-time spell power and attack power coefficient has been lowered by 5%.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Shadow Arrow's direct hit has been lowered from 130% down to 125% ranged weapon damage.
• [Area-52] - [Dark Ranger] - Dark Arrow now deals 65% of your ranged weapon damage, down from 80%.
• [Area-52] - [Deadly Bite] - Deadly Instinct no longer has charges, its duration has been reduced to 10 seconds and now increases the damage dealt by Mongoose Bite, Counterattack, and Raptor Strike by 40%.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of Arugal] - Tainted now increases the damage done by your Unstable Affliction by 125% and Curse of Agony or Curse of Doom by 200%. Changed from 110% to Unstable Affliction and 190% to Curse of Agony only.
• [Area-52] - [Disciple of Arugal] - Arugal's Fury now increases the damage of your Shadow Missiles by 30% and their critical strike chance by 15%, up from 25%/10% respectively.

Balance Changes that are going live as a follow up patch for the Mythic and Ascended Release: 

• [Area-52] [Righteous Flames] - Righteous Flames now increases the damage of your Holy Fire (Righteous Flames) by 40% per stack. Up from 20%
• [Area-52] [Total Eclipse] - Lunar Eclipse now increases the Arcane damage dealt by 20%. Down from 30%
• [Area-52] [Fel Shock] - Fel Core now increases the critical strike chance of your next Soul Fire by 8%. Down from 15%
• [Area-52] [Fel Shock] - Fel Burst now increases the damage of your next Lava Burst by 40%. Down from 50%
• [Area-52] [Fingers of Death] - Potency of Vampiric Embrace is reduced by 50% when attacking monsters
• [Area-52] [Flamekeeper] - Flamekeeper no longer increases the stack amount of your Pyroblast periodic effect
• [Area-52] [Hot Hands] - Fixed a tooltip where the Mystic Enchant would mention that the damage over time of your Pyroblast was doubled and it scaled of haste. This was never live and is removed from the description
• [Area-52] [Hot Hands] - Superheated now increases Fire damage and spell haste by 3%. Down from 4%
• [Area-52] [Evoker] - The Evoker buff now increases the damage of your Fireball by 10% and Arcane Missiles by 4%. Changed from 8% to both
• [Area-52] [Prophet of Wrath] - Divine Wrath now increases the damage of your next Smite or Holy Fire by 25%. Up from 15%
• [Area-52] [Darkmaster] - Necromancer's Touch now increases the damage of your Drain Life by 22%. Up from 20%
• [Area-52] [Master of Shadows] - Increased the base damage and scaling of Dark Intent by 15%
• [Area-52] [Elune] - Increased the base damage and scaling of Chaos Bolt by 10
• [Area-52] [Elune] - Decreased the base damage and scaling of Soul Fire by 6%
• [Area-52] [Burning Darkness] - Flame Born now increases the damage of your Shadowflame by 18%
• [Area-52] [Harbinger of Pestilence] - The Harbinger of Pestilence buff now increases the damage of your diseases by 22%. Up from 20%
• [Area-52] [Knight of the Eclipse] - Lunar and Solar Knight now increase the damage of Wrath,Starfire and Starsurge by 70%. Up from 60%.
• [Area-52] [Booming Thunder] - Booming Thunder buff now stacks up to 26 times. Up from 22.
• [Area-52] [Verdant Convergence] - Nature's Grace now increases the damage of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by 18%. Up from 15%.
• [Area-52] [Verdant Convergence] - Increased the base damage and scaling of Earthpulse Agony by 10%.
• [Area-52] [Midnight Flames] - Shadow Kindling now increases the critical strike chance of Fireball, Fire Blast and Pyroblast by 3%.
• [Area-52] [Midnight Flames] - Midnight Flames now increases the damage of Shadowflame and Immolate by 17%. Up from 16%.
• [Area-52] [Pure Shadow] - Now has a new mechanic: Dealing direct damage with Shadowburn against monsters now reduces the cooldown of Shadowfury by 1 second.
• [Area-52] [Warden of Demonreach] - Reduced the base damage and scaling of Fuego, Unleashed Fuego, Arctis and Unleashed Arctis by 10%.
• [Area-52] [Warden of Demonreach] - Fixed an issue causing the proc chance of Duality of Winter and Summer was higher then intended, the proc chance is now properly 20% and is now listed in the tooltip.
• [Area-52] [Elune] [Focused Burst] - Fixed a bug causing Focused Burst to be able to trigger Thrill of the Hunt twice per channel.
• [Area-52] [Arcane Gunslinger] - Arcane Bullets weapon damage has been reduced by 10% on each rank.
• [Area-52] [Compound Power] - The global cooldown of the Combo Shot is now 0.5 seconds, down from 1 second.
• [Area-52] [Compound Power] - Increased the ranged weapon damage of Combo Shot from 150% to 175%.
• [Area-52] [Compound Power] - Compound Flurry now also increases the critical strike chance of Steady Shot by 15%.
• [Area-52] [Flashpoint Operative] Engine of Destruction now increases the damage of ranged hunter abilities, Living Bomb and Fire Blast by 8%, down from 12%. The critical strike chance increase remains at 12%.
• [Area-52] [Locust Ranger] - Chimera Shot and Toxic Surge can now trigger Wild Quiver Shot.
• [Area-52] [Locust Ranger] - Toxic Surge in addition to Locust Shot hits against targets affected by your Serpent Sting reduce the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 2 seconds.
• [Area-52] [Locust Ranger] - Locust Shot no longer guarantees a Wild Quiver Shot against targets affected by your Serpent Sting.
• [Area-52] [Locust Ranger] - Fixed a bug causing Wild Locust Swarm to deal higher then intended damage to targets affected by the casters Serpent Sting.
• [Area-52] [Paratrooper] - Target Spotted now increases damage taken from the caster by 6%, down from 8%.
• [Area-52] [Arcane Thunder Seer] - Reduced the base damage and scaling of Spellstorm Missiles by 15%.
• [Area-52] [Cauterizing Flames] - Cauterizing Fire now last only 8 seconds. Down from 14.
• [Area-52] [Fire Fire Fireball] - Fire Fire heal now last only 8 seconds. Down from 14.

Marks of Triumph

Marks of Triumph are a new level 60 currency obtained from callboard caches, heroic and mythic dungeons and intend to fulfill the same purpose that Badges of Justice fill in TBC, a deterministic way to obtain gear and keep these dungeons relevant for longer while simultaneously providing clear and delineated surefire progress you are making towards outfitting your character in epic gear. You can trade in your Marks of Triumph at Markus or Mar’Toge near Romus the Redeemer in Capital Cities where and redeem powerful tier 1 items.

Classic Reputation Items

Reputation Gear is an essential part of all future expansions but is not really found in Vanilla. So we’ve added them in. Earn Honored, Revered, and Exalted rewards from: The Thorium Brotherhood, Timbermaw Hold, Cenarion Circle and the Argent Dawn. Traversing through Ascension’s Classic+ Open World to bolster your standings with these factions will be well worth the effort.

Conquest of Azeroth

Conquest of Azeroth reached its 60 phase on the closed Alpha, bringing with it TONS of epic updates: 21 New Classes and 69 NICE specs are all diving into end-game dungeons, raids, and challenges.

The 60 phase of the CoA Alpha brought several BIG class updates:

• Son of Arugal transforms into Blood Mage

• Monk is now Templar

• Demon Hunter becomes the Felsworn

 In addition many classes receive a new fourth spec:

• Primalists can now unleash their fury as a Mountain Kings: a dual-wielding tank that uses hammers to shake the earth and shatter stone.

• Starcallers can become Wardens: ancient jailers of demonic forces and masters of swift, sudden death.

• Sun Clerics can now specialize as Valkyries: wielding spears of holy light to dispense justice to the unrighteous.

• Witch Hunters can become BLACK KNIGHTS: don your Witchmail and a two handed sword to deflect enemy attacks and cut monsters down.

• Venomancers can transform into VIZIERS: poisonous healers that harness Shadra’s dark magic to weave webs of healing on allies.

• Blood Mages can become the ACCURSED: using a corrupted form to weave in and out of battle as both a melee and caster damage dealer in a single spec.

All classes and specs continue to receive polish, like ensuring Capstone Effects are thematic and powerful. 

Support Roles like Wind Stormbringer, Inspiration Guardian, Farstrider Ranger, and Ancestry Barbarians receive extra focus because the ‘support’ role didn’t exist in Vanilla WoW. The goal is to ensure they feel great to play but aren’t mandatory. 

New itemization ensures classes have necessary gear like Spell Power Guns, Ranged Attack Power Wands, Mail Tank Gear, and more. This makes sure all CoA classes have gear.

Over 1400 player-reported bugs were fixed last month on CoA, and each of the class’s abilities and spells are constantly under improvement to make sure visuals are great and skills work as intended.

Moving forward, CoA is putting more focus on PvP balance. 

The next big step for CoA is Open Beta Weekends, where EVERYONE gets to jump in and give feedback on CoA. Until then, emails containing Alpha invites continue to go out, so add Ascension to your contacts and check your inbox to see if you get an invite. 

As more heroes help improve the game and bugs are ironed out, Conquest of Azeroth will move closer to an Official Release.

Bronzebeard: The Original 9 Class Realm

Bronzebeard is a new upcoming realm where you’ll play as any of the original 9 classes and embark into an expanded Azeroth.

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.

Progress through the entire warcraft trilogy–Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK–enhanced with Ascension’s classic+ content. New quests, new professions, over 2000+ new items, spells, new dungeons, enhanced raids, both new and upgraded battlegrounds and arenas, and even entirely new ways to play like Hardcore Trials, Adventure Mode, or the Manastorm. On Bronzebeard, you’ll discover more ways to play the classes you love than ever before, unlocking specs you’ve never been able to play in Vanilla before. Play the way you remember AND in brand new ways and challenge all of Ascension’s Classic+ content.

Introducing Bronzebeard.

Play new Race class combinations like Troll Druid, Human Hunter, Night Elf Mage, and more. Harness the power of TBC and Wrath spells in vanilla to unlock new playstyles, ensuring specs like Arcane Mage and Retribution Paladin can thrive. Discover new talents added to the base WOTLK talent trees to bolster specs that didn't have support:

New Race/Class Combos

For champions who love playing as a Night Elf Mage, Troll Druid, or Tauren Paladin, your time is now: the following Race/Class combos are unlocked in Bronzebeard:

• Troll Druid
  • With customizable shapeshift forms by changing hair/facial features.
• Human Hunter
• Tauren Paladin
• Dwarf Shaman
• Blood Elf Warrior
• Night Elf Mage
• Dwarf Mage
• Orc Mage

TROLL DRUID: Shapeshift effects match your character choices.

Expanded Classes

Holy Priest gets new talents like After Kindling, Blessed Vengeance, Radiant Fury, and Divine Accuracy so you can play the SMITE BUILD you’ve always wanted. Hunter gets Talents like Relentless, Deadly Focus, Savagery, or Hunting for Sport to open up a true melee Survival build. Harness Two-Handed Weapon Specialization for Enhancement Shamans to unlock new Two-Handed playstyles.

That’s just the surface of new spells and talents that support brand new ways to play your favorite class. You’ll also customize your champion with a new Mystic Enchantment system tailored to the original 9 classes: 

Here are some changes:

• Expertise is removed from the game.
• Talents and enchants that gave expertise now give Hit Rating instead.
• Glancing Blows are removed.
• Your attacks in PvE have a significantly reduced chance to be dodge/parried.
• Resists are no longer binary
  • Because frostbolt had a chilling effect, any boss, mob or player that could resist the effect had a chance to negate the entirety of the damage of the spell rather than it being partially resisted. 

• Tank Stances
  • Righteous Fury, Bear Form and Defensive Stance reduce your chance to be critically hit via monsters.
  • Increased Threat Generation.
  • Hand of Reckoning, Growl and Taunt can no longer miss.
    • “Taunting for damage.” 
  • Righteous Fury, Bear Form and Defensive Stance are now all available at level 10.
    • Manastorm, The Dungeon Finder and Battlegrounds are now available at level 10.

• Combo Points
  • Combo Points are now bound to the player, rather than the target meaning if you swap targets, you keep all your combo points.

• Class Quests 
  • Class Quests are no longer required to learn key abilities like Berserker Stance or Summon Voidwalker. Instead, they have unique to Ascension rewards inspired by the flavor of the ability that was once learned. Visit your trainer.

Warrior

• NEW Talent: Single-Minded Fury

• Wrecking Crew is now 3 talent points but still provides the same value as its 5 point counterpart.
• Rend is now a starting ability.
• 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

• Righteous Fury now increases all threat you generate by 40% and is doubled for Holy Spells and Abilities instead of Just increasing Holy Threat.
• Crusader Strike is now a starting ability.
  • Usable by all specializations.
  • Replaced in the retribution tree by a new talent: Promise of the Crusader.
• Downscaled Spell: Divine Plea is now available at level 25.
• 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 gain their talent points faster, by level 60 pets will have 5 more talent points available.
  • This puts the amount of talent points pets have equal to how many they had in WOTLK originally.
• Serpent’s Swiftness and Kindred Spirits is now 3 talent points but still provides the same value as its 5 point counterpart. 
• Counterattack and Mongoose Bite scaling increased.
• Savage Strikes is now a point 3 talent, up from 2. Increasing the critical strike chance of your Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite and Counterattack by 8/16/24%.
• Expose Weakness can now trigger from all hunter shots and abilities rather than just ranged ones.
• Downscaled Spell: Steady Shot is now available at level 1.
• Tame Beast is now a baseline ability at level 10 
  • instead of learned through a quest and is available at level 10.
• 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 54.
• Downscaled Spell: Call Stabled Pet is now available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Misdirection is now available at level 60.
• New Spell: Kill Command is now available at level 60.
• New Talent: Relentless
• New Talent: Deadly Focus
• New Talent: Hunting For Sport
  • Since Death Knights aren’t available yet, without this change only enhancement shamans could bring the melee haste buff.

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.
• 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.
  
   

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
• New Talent: Blessed Vengeance
• New Talent: Radiant Fury
• New Talent: Divine Accuracy

Shaman

• Shamans now start with the ability to parry… 👀
• New Spell: Bind Elemental is available at level 26.
• 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.

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.
  • Opening up a completely new way to play.
• Improved pet AI for Tame Dragonkin and Summon Water Elemental.
  
   

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.

Druid

• Combo Points are now bound to the player, rather than the target meaning if you swap targets, you keep all your combo points.
• Rend and Tear is now a 3 point talent. 
• Wrath of Cenarius is now a 3 point talent.
• Swipe is now available at level 20.
• New Spell: Thrash is now available at level 30.
  • 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.
• New Spell: Starsurge is now available at level 32.
• Downscaled Spell: Lacerate is now available at level 38.
• 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 New Spell: Cyclone is available at level 60.
• Downscaled Spell: Maim is available at level 60.

Mystic Enchants Tailored to the Original 9 Classes

You’ll also customize your champion with a new Mystic Enchantment system tailored to the original 9 classes with 4 different rarities. 

• New: Artifact Mystic Enchantments
• Legendary Mystic Enchantments
• Epic Mystic Enchantments
• Rare Mystic Enchantments

Unlock and Discover Artifact Quality enchantments and harness a variety of powerful cooldown spells for each class: Mass Invisibility for Mages, Smoke Bomb for Rogues, and Avatar for Warriors are just a few of the Artifact Spells you’ll uncover for each class. 

Then, discover Legendary Enchantments that 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. 

Epic enchants augment your abilities in unique ways: teaching you new spells and abilities, changing how existing spells work, or granting powerful passive power. Spells like From the Shadows for rogues and Wrathful Exorcism for Paladins are found here.

Lastly, Rare enchants give you access to glyphs or early talents in secondary 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.

Every Mystic Enchantment in Bronzebeard is obtainable in the open world—some in places you remember and others in completely new locations waiting to be discovered. These Mystic Enchantments are tailored to the original nine classes, both opening up new ways to play and supporting classic playstyles. Whether you want to explore something new like a Crimson Defender Paladin or play a classic Fire Mage, you’ll find Enchantments that bolster your favorite approach.

That’s just the beginning, on Bronzebeard, you’ll dive into all the content Ascension has built over the past eight years: new quests, new items, Heroic, Mythic, and even Mythic+ versions of every Vanilla dungeon, expanded raid mechanics, new world bosses, new dungeons like Karazhan Crypts and Blackrock Caverns, new maps for your favorite Battlegrounds and Arenas, and even brand-new content. As Ascension continues to create and expand, you’ll have more ways to explore the world you love. 

Ascension Custom Content on Bronzebeard

Itemization Overhaul

For example, classic features only 9 tier sets: one for each class. But what if you want to play as a Protection Paladin or an Elemental Shaman?

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

Over the lifetime of Ascension, over 2,000 brand new items and thousands of changes to existing Itemization have been made. All of which will be available on Bronzebeard, the Original 9 Classes Realm. You will be able to outfit your hero, use what you know and what you will discover to embark on a journey unlike one that you’ve ever been in before.

New Quests: The Hero’s Call Board

The Hero’s Call Board is an end-game Ascension feature that provides you an array of rotating Daily and Weekly quests. These quests take you across multiple continents, award you essential loot such as gear, Marks of Ascension,and give you clear places to adventure. They serve as hotspots for Heroes to flock to, potentially helping you meet new allies and explore Azeroth together.

The Hero’s Call Board features a variety of Daily and Weekly quests. However, you don’t have to worry about missing them: Call Board quests can stack up to 7 times a week (one for each day), so you can bang them all out at once, or complete them every day–it’s up to you.

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. 

Additionally, 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.

Crafting Overhaul

Crafting and professions are the lifeblood of Azeroth, providing a unique way to obtain gear, trade with others, and create powerful weapons. In Warcraft Reborn, 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.

One of Warcraft Reborn’s goals is to continue to make crafting an enticing, important part of Azeroth.

• Crafting and Gathering now grant Experience

Every time you gather or craft an item, you’ll receive experience based on what you did: 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, rather than being a ‘side task’ that has no relation to your progress.

• Crafted items now have additional Affixes appended to them

Items you create will additionally receive ‘...of the Eagle’, ‘...of the Bear’, etc. along with the stats that those affixes provide. 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!

• New powerful Craftables

Additional powerful craftables such as new food items, new item enchants, (belt buckles, cape linings, 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!

Bronzebeard Alpha debuts in Winter 2024 with a release expected between Spring and Summer 2025.

New Player Experience Overhaul

With so much new content on the horizon, Ascension is seeing thousands of new heroes join its community. However, for each hero joining, a LOT more quit: because as it turns out Ascension is hard to get into. Throughout the years, Ascension has accumulated hundreds of changes without keeping newcomers in mind. This is bad, of course, because more heroes means a bigger community, and a bigger community means more fun. By doing more for new players to make their experience great, they’ll actually learn and enjoy the game: and the community can grow in a big way.

So: for the past 6 months, we’ve been reaching out to players who quit the game. Turns out most of them quit before level 3, which was a punch to the gut, but we’re recovering. We asked them why they quit, and what would have made the experience so good that they would have stuck around. This culminated in the Newcomer Overhaul:

The Newcomer Overhaul is a series of sweeping improvements to the entire starting experience on Ascension: from new client streaming that gets newcomers into the game faster to a brand new Free Pick Character Creation, new in-game tutorials, and the new Ascension Compendium.

Client Streaming

First, a new Client Streaming Feature lets you start playing even while the game is still downloading. This reduces the time it takes new players to get in-game for the first time by 95%--letting you hop in, create a character, and start playing while the full game downloads in the background. 

Archetypes in Character Creation

Second, you now have an epic new way to create characters on Area 52: you can now choose Archetypes at character select. When you click the new Choose Archetype button, you’ll be prompted to choose a Role and Playstyle. Once you do, you’ll see epic classless builds pulled from the Hero Architect based on your choices. Pick one, and you’ll enter the world as that Archetype with everything you need to start playing. As you play, you’ll automatically learn your archetype’s spells, talents, and mystic enchantments, so you can take on greater challenges

.

One of the biggest hurdles players who quit the game expressed was having to stand around in the starting zone and read through hundreds of abilities before they even got to kill their first wolf. We actually saw this in action: we sat down and watched people play through Ascension’s starting experience. We asked them what their favorite part was: designing a hero, picking weapons, choosing abilities and talents–and do you know what they said? One of ‘em looked us straight in the eye and said “I just like killing wolves.” 

Bro… new players just want to kill wolves. Why does it take so long to start killing wolves? Why does little brother have to sit there reading through abilities before he gets to kill wolves. Now he doesn't: browse dozens of epic archetypes, pick the one you love, get straight into the game with your skills ready to go, and go kill some wolves.

If you’re a veteran player, or someone who LOVES Theorycrafting you can build your hero from scratch. By choosing Free Pick at character select, you can leap into Ascension and start building your hero with new tools. This is part of Ascension’s focus on making systems that are good for both new heroes AND veterans. If you want to pick an archetype, you can. If you’d rather build a hero from scratch, you can do that, too. Play the way you want, hero–that’s what Ascension is all about.

New Basic Tutorials

There’s also one more new option at character select:

Ascension has been around for eight years now: and World of Warcraft is now 20 years old. An increasing number of gamers worldwide have never played WoW before. Many of these Heroes want to give Ascension a shot, but things like basic movement, talking to quest givers, and even using keybinds to cast spells are foreign to them.

If you’re interested in playing Custom WoW, exploring Azeroth, and having fun, you should be able to even if you’ve never played WoW before. Now you can:

You can now choose your preferred starting experience at Character Creation. When you finish making your character, you’ll be prompted to choose between New to WoW, New to Ascension, or Ascension Veteran.

New to WoW enables ALL NEW TUTORIALS including the basics like moving, attacking, and using abilities. It also enables Ascension Specific tutorials like how to pick abilities, how to rank them up, how to unlearn skills, etc.

New to Ascension only enables the tutorials specific to Ascension: like learning and unlearning skills.

Ascension Veteran disables all tutorials because you clearly know what you’re doing.

Choosing this starting experience is integrated with character creation, so it will feel like a natural part of making your character. Pick the right choice for you, and tailored tutorials will help you master the game fast.

Super Tracker

On Ascension, you need to be able to know where you’re going whether that’s questing or even getting back to your body when you die. One of the things newcomers who quit before level 3 brought up was that it wasn’t always clear where to go.

Enter the Super Tracker.

The Super Tracker is a new tracker that shows you exactly where to go for things like quests, points of interest, and even getting back to your body: it gives you a clear, visually distinct destination marker to run towards, so you can get to where you’re going. It also helps keep you in the world without needing to open your map every few seconds to make sure you’re on the right path. Just start tracking, follow the marker, and go. 

The Super Tracker works for most quests in-game, including Call Board Quests. You can change the quest you're tracking at any time by clicking on your objectives. Additionally, the Super Tracker isn’t dependent on which Tutorial you choose at character select–everyone has it by default, and you can toggle it off if you don’t want it. 

Ability Browser

When you’re looking for spells, sometimes you want the option to easily search based on what it does. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to see all Stun or Mobility spells side by side so you can pick the one that’s right for you? Now you can:

Your Character Sheet now has a new Browse icon. When you click it, you’ll see spells and abilities based on a wide variety of categories and tags. This includes groups like Core Damage spells, Mobility Spells, Buffs, Debuffs, Damage over Time, Crowd Control skills, etc. Now you can search for the TYPES of abilities you want and see all available options side by side in one easy to see place. You’ll be able to see that Sprint is a great movement option for your Fighter, but Burning Rush might be better for your Wizard. It’s one more way Ascension is creating tools that are great for both new heroes AND veterans alike.

Elune Specific - Wildcard Start change

Speaking of Abilities, another newcomer change comes specifically to Wildcard.

One of the things that players who quit before level 3 mentioned about Wildcard Mode was that they weren’t sure which abilities were good together. The newcomer experience in wildcard mode was a lot of time rolling and reading skills. They’d do this for 13 minutes, get bored because they weren’t killing wolves, and quit.

It’s hard for people to choose between hundreds of skills right when they start the game–especially when they haven’t even decided if they want to keep playing yet. Most newcomers just want to get questing and kill some wolves. So to get you started on your journey quicker, Wildcard Heroes now roll their starting skills one at a time.

New Wildcard Heroes start the game by rolling 1 ability that is always a damaging spell. As level, you’ll roll 3 additional abilities from 1-8, so you end up with four spells just like before. 

If you’re a veteran you’ll have all of your skillcards unlocked and start with 4 abilities like normal and then you’ll kill some wolves.

This improves the pacing for new heroes without changing much if you already have your skill cards unlocked.

An Immersive Experience

Starting Zones get upgrades to both functionality and immersion to continue to improve the beginning of your journey:

First, as you step into starting zones you’ll notice a lot less distracting NPCs. 

• Creatures like Malik the Courier are now baked into the Vanity UI,
• Stoney Tark now offers the rewards for both Build Draft and Trials

Second, If you choose any of the Tame Pet Skills like Tame Beast, Tame Dragon, or Tether Elemental, you’ll notice you now have a distinct pet based on your race. Small details like this make your choices more fun, meaningful, and unique.

Third, you’l find starting zones have new class trainers for all classes. These trainers are immersive rather than just dumping NPCs from other zones that would look out of place. 

Fourth, you’ll find your inventory naturally expanding and getting bigger as you complete quests. Starting quests now award bags, and bags get bigger as you move to quests in the next zone. You can also expand your sack further, as both Innkeepers and General Goods Vendors now sell bags as well.

Fifth, while you and your massive sack are adventuring, you’ll find Vendors now have a wider array of gear such as Guns, Crossbows, and more. With new realms like Conquest of Azeroth and the OG 9 class realm on the horizon, these new weapons will help outfit different classes and playstyles.

Sixth, you’ll find that many quests now have better, more convenient turn-in locations. For example, instead of trekking back to Goldshire after defeating Hogger, you can now complete the quest at Westbrook Garrison. This cuts downs on travel time and helps you get immersed in your adventure. It is one more way to make the Open World feel great.

Finally, you’ll have an even BETTER experience navigating the Open World. New Riding Trainers in Starting Zones also offer free basic mounts that you can ride at 40% speed without any riding training. Combined with new Flight Masters that take you from Starting Zones to your next town like Goldshire or Razor Hill, moving through Azeroth’s Open World is better than ever before. 

From big quality of life improvements to the small but meaningful details, these changes culminate in a starting experience that feels great. Whether you’re an original class, a CoA champion, or a classless hero, once you’re in-game, you’ll be immersed in your adventure: doing quests, killing wolves, getting stronger, and having adventures together.

Level Scaling Updates

Creatures who scaled up were not as dangerous as creature's relative to your level and as a result of that, the world was not truly dangerous. For Example, a level 5 wolf scaled to 15 was much weaker than a level 15 wolf that was not scaled.

These level scaling changes address a few problems:

1. When leveling through the open world overtime mobs became weaker relative to you as you would level up. However, when all mobs scaled to your current level sometimes it would feel like they actually became harder to fight.
   
   Now, level scaling mobs will start to “trail” behind you in level. Overtime, the mobs around you will turn “green”. The implications of this is:
   
   
   1. You will get stronger relative to the world around you when you level up.  
      1. Your chance to hit, crit, dodge, parry, block, etc. is all better on a lower level creature.
      2. The creature’s chance to hit, crit, dodge, parry, block, etc. is all worse on a higher level player.
      3. Your base HP and HP provided from gear goes up while the mob's damage does not increase.
   2. As a note: level scaled mobs can never be lower than 3 levels of you.

1. When all mobs scaled to your level, It was not obvious or intuitive when you should traverse to the next zone.
   1. Higher level zones generally have more quests with slightly better rewards, better vendors with level appropriate food and water and would make you stronger.
   2. While you certainly could stay in Elwynn Forest all the way to level 60, it did not really promote that feeling of exploration in the open world.
      
       
2. The open world feels threatening but no longer homogenous when fighting creatures.
   1. Since higher level creatures start to trail behind at later levels, they will still feel stronger relative to the surrounding creatures.
   2. Let’s use an example and say you were maybe not able to take down Hogger, but you really wanted the item from his quest. In the previous system, Hogger would always scale to your level and never be beatable for you. Now, with the new system, you can gain the advantage on Hogger by leveling up a few times. 

New Ascension Compendium: Path to Ascension

Ascension has introduced many custom systems over the years, and for newcomers, it can be overwhelming trying to understand what they are or how to use them. To address this, the Ascension Compendium now replaces the old Path to Ascension questline, providing a complete walkthrough of Ascension’s core features. This new compendium allows everyone, from first-time players to veterans, to quickly discover, understand, and master the game’s unique systems.

The Ascension Compendium is a new quest chain conveniently located right in your UI. When clicked, it opens up a tome filled with Ascension-specific quests that walk you through all the essential game features. Whether you’re figuring out how to select your Primary Stat or learning where to find and equip Mystic Enchantments, this compendium serves as your guide.

The system is designed to evolve with you as you level. Starting at level 8, you’ll unlock the Path to Ascension, and as you progress, new quests will open up, such as Mount Up, which leads to quests for faster riding training. These quests ensure that important features are introduced at just the right time in your journey, allowing for smooth progression.

No Pressure to Accept Quests
One of the best features of the new system is that you don’t need to actively accept quests to progress through the Path to Ascension. If you’re an experienced Ascension or WoW player, you’ll likely complete many of these quests just by playing normally. The UI will notify you when a Path to Ascension has been completed, allowing you to quickly claim rewards without interrupting your gameplay. For example, if you queue up for a dungeon, the Dungeon Finder Path to Ascension will automatically complete, even if you’ve never opened the tutorial.

Useful for New Players and Veterans Alike
While the Ascension Compendium is perfect for newcomers learning the ropes, it’s also valuable for veterans. The compendium provides useful insights like when your gear is strong enough to tackle raids, ensuring that even seasoned players stay informed. It’s also great for ensuring your teammates and allies are competent and ready to dive into content with you.

Multiple Quest Tabs for Customization
At the bottom of the compendium, you’ll find tabs that let you swap between different quest types. You can access Getting Started, PvE, PvP, and even the new Mentor System, which connects new players with experienced guides.

By following the Ascension Compendium, you can unlock rewards, gain useful knowledge, and master Ascension’s the unique systems.

Mentor Overhaul

Sometimes it’s easier to ask for help than it is to complete a quest. In fact, many newcomers prefer just outright asking for help. With the new Mentor System, you’ll know exactly who you can ask when you need a bit of guidance.

Heroes who complete the entire Path of Ascension questline can opt-in to becoming mentors. Once you do, you can choose from a list of what kind of mentor you are: from things like Dungeon and Raid mentors to even Build Mentors and more.

If you’re a mentor, new players can find you in the Mentor Tab of the Ascension Compendium, and can ask questions to get great advice.

If you’re a new player, you can use the Mentor List to find Mentors who will help you learn about Ascension. Reach out to them with any questions you have. 

The Mentor Tab helps newcomers learn fast, master Ascension, and creates a better community for everyone.

Build Inspect

The new Build Inspect feature is a game-changer for both new and returning players. By allowing you to right-click on other Heroes to inspect their builds, it opens up an entirely new way to learn and master the game. No more guesswork or struggling to figure out why certain abilities work well together—Build Inspect lets you see strong skills, combinations, and talents firsthand, providing a foundation for crafting your own powerful builds.

Learning Through Insight

For newcomers, one of the biggest barriers to success—especially in PvP—was not knowing why they lost or how to improve. The Build Inspect feature bridges this gap, allowing players to quickly catch up on nearly a decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge. By inspecting the builds of more experienced players, they can learn how spells and talents interact, gain inspiration, and better understand what works and why. This feature raises the knowledge floor for everyone, creating a community where players are more informed and empowered.

Transparency and Skill-Based Play

Build Inspect also ensures that no one can hide behind exploits or unintended interactions. With this transparency, victory becomes more about skill and mastery rather than secret, hidden builds. Players can no longer rely on obscure setups to gain an edge—true success will come from how well you play your build, not just the build itself. If your edge in PvP is solely based on keeping your build secret, it might just be time to git gud.

A Stronger Community

By making build knowledge more accessible, Build Inspect helps foster a stronger community of players with better, stronger builds. As more players understand how builds work, they’ll begin experimenting, leading to even more unique builds being discovered. This means stronger allies, more creative playstyles, and a game that continuously evolves as players push the boundaries of what’s possible.

In short, Build Inspect makes Ascension more approachable and balanced for everyone, ensuring that success is based on skill, not secrecy. Whether you’re a new player trying to understand the game or a veteran looking to refine your strategy, this feature will make the experience better for all.

New Content

Karazhan Crypt

The crypts beneath Karazhan have remained sealed for centuries: Magna Aegwynn's wards prove almost impenetrable. But even the greatest mage's seals wane, and when the guardian’s wards fall, it’s up to you to defeat the darkness trapped inside: welcome to the Karazhan Crypts.

Karazhan Crypts is a new original dungeon in one of the most iconic unused locations in Azeroth. Now swarming with evil forces, the dungeon features custom creatures, original bosses, and new treasure. You can challenge it at any point in your adventure–at 60, and at 70–and the loot you find scales to your level. Look forward to facing incredibly unique new mechanics and overcoming the Crypts' deadly encounters.

Ascension’s Karazhan Crypts includes:

• A quest chain to access it
• 4 Total Bosses
• 2 Rares
• 36 items.

Blackrock Caverns

Deep below the ominous Blackrock Mountain lays a series of winding caverns tunneling through its heart. Shrouded in darkness and filled with danger, these forgotten halls are a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of those who once sought refuge within its volcanic depths. Now its mysteries lay forgotten–until you enter its depths. Welcome to Blackrock Caverns.

• 5 Bosses
• 29 New items
• 2 New Dungeon Trinkets
  • Dungeon trinkets are very rare!
• Mobs in Blackrock Caverns are more susceptible to certain types of damage to begin to enhance the RPG feeling of the game.

Blackrock Caverns is the second new dungeon to enter Ascension. This faithful recreation includes the bosses, mechanics, and items that you’re familiar with all tuned for a Vanilla setting. Challenge its dangers, win its spoils, and discover new ways to equip your champions on ALL Ascension realms. 

New Arenas

Leap into the Arena and challenge other Heroes to lethal combat, earning your way to incredible PvP Weapons and armor: 4 BRAND NEW arenas and 4 HD versions of the ones you know and love arrive to all realms with chapter 2. These new arenas keep the characteristics of those you’re familiar with, but offer new environments to prove your might. Additionally, HD Versions of Blade’s Edge, Nagrand, and more bring a bit of modern flare to your fights. Charge into combat and earn your place amongst legends, hero: new arenas give you more epic places to fight.

In-Game Upgrades

Next up, hero, Chapter 3 brings a few big upgrades to Ascension in general to enhance the way you play.

New Camera Settings

First, you’ll find a new optional camera setting changes the way your camera interacts with objects. Rather than snapping to your character when you run behind walls, this new setting simply keeps the camera put, allowing a more steady view as you run behind objects.

Transmogrification Wardrobe UI Overhaul

Second, you can enjoy a BIG change to the Transmogrification Wardrobe. This essential UI has been completely re-written so that it loads faster, filters faster, and so much more. Duplicate items have been pruned, a bunch of bugs got fixed, and memory usage got reduced (by like 97%) which lowers the chance of client crashes. It makes using the transmog system better so you can look the way you want.

LFG Updates

Fourth, speaking of LFG, you can now use the Dungeon Finder starting at level 10–down from level 15. This puts it adjacent to Battleground and Manastorm queues which were already available at 10. This change ensures that you can play however you want as soon as you reach level 10, whether that’s dungeons, battlegrounds, or the manstorm. It’s one more way to let you play the way you want.

Additionally, all TBC dungeons are now available between levels 58-70 so your queue times are quick and you can jump right into the action.

Client Changes

Finally, with reworks to various systems, a lot of memory in the Client has been freed up. This lets you use more addons without crashing in capital cities so much. Get ready to dive into the next chapter of Ascension, Heroes. New adventures are just around the corner.

Wrath of the Lich King

With the Legion’s fall in Sunwell Plateau, Ascension’s focus turns towards Wrath of the Lich King: and it's coming in 2025. 

A frozen World awaits you, hero: a world teeming with danger and excitement. When you reach Northrend, you’ll step into a land of the living dead, filled with terror, ancient secrets, and iconic challenges. The wrath of the damned blights this land, and soon (™), it will be up to you to stop it.

Ascension’s Wrath of the Lich King is a faithful recreation of one of Warcraft’s greatest expansions. With its release, you’ll level to 80 and experience the zones, creatures, and quests you know and love. You’ll dive into iconic dungeons with added mythic, and mythic+ difficulties. You’ll wage war in Strand of Ancients and Wintergrasp, and You’ll challenge raids enhanced with custom mechanics or even new additional bosses. 

But that’s not all. There’s MORE: from new rare creatures and World Bosses to entirely new zones for you to explore and even brand new ways for you to play– you’ll experience it all on Classless and eventually in Conquest of Azeroth and the Original 9 Class Realms.

And on Classless, while you’re exploring an expanded northrend. Death Knight abilities will be yours to wield. Unlock new archetypes as you fuse the power of Blood, Frost, and Unholy into your build. You’ll harness spells like Deathgrip, Death and Decay, Army of the Dead. Imbue their strength into your build to enhance your favorite archetypes, or be the first to create something entirely new, and challenge ALL of Northrend’s dangers. 

Look to the horizon, Hero: Northrend Calls

Custom WoW and Conclusion 

Finally, hero, we want to take a moment to zoom out a bit:

One of the threads throughout Ascension’s recent content is making things that improve Ascension as a whole: whether you’re on Classless, Conquest of Azeroth, or the original 9 class realm, things like new Dungeons, Mechanics, the newcomer overhaul, and Ascension Compendium improve ALL Ascension Realms at the same time. This is going to be a trend moving forward:

Thanks for tuning in to the Ascension Official Update. We’ll see you, Heroes, for the next generation of Custom WoW.