Given the massive amount of news we got from the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct stream, the WoW Classic team also shared some important PTR Development notes for the upcoming Season of Discovery phase.
We will take a look at everything you need to know if you wish to try testing the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, and the Nightmare Grove raids as well as provide feedback to ensure the gameplay is smooth and fun.
Table of Contents
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WoW SoD Phase 6 PTR Notes for 1.15.5
We will briefly go over all of the changes and features that will be available for players to test out before they go live.
Testing Focus
The focus of this PTR is to evaluate the new raid content coming in patch 1.15.5. This includes the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, and the Nightmare Grove raids. The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj is tuned for 20 players and the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj is tuned for 10 players.
PTR Testing Vendors
You’ll find a variety of vendors in both Stormwind and Orgimmar offering Tier 1, Tier 2, and various other items such as consumables and enchants to help you test this new content. Players may copy their characters from live Season of Discovery realms or use the template characters and vendors available.
Accessing the Raids
Once testers have formed their raid group, they may speak with Captain Placeholder in either Stormwind or Orgrimmar to speak to teleport to any of the available raids.
All of this is crucial if you wish to help out the WoW Classic team in testing for bugs.
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WoW SoD PTR 1.15.5 Class Adjustments
Hunter
- Lock and Load now activates its buff on trap cast rather than trap activation.
- Sniper Training now causes Aimed Shot to become instant at 2 stacks (was 5).
Developers’ notes: The two adjustments above are meant to smooth out some of the more clunky aspects of the ranged Hunter playstyle. Allowing Lock and Load to proc on trap cast rather than trigger should provide the hunter with more consistent output should one of their traps fail to trigger, and the adjustment to Sniper Training should cause small amounts of movement during encounters to be less punishing.
Temple of Ahn’Qiraj & Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj
The dev team will also be adding a brand new feature for guilds looking to spice up their gameplay and add another layer of difficulty to the infamous raids.
New System – Descent into Madness
- When players arrive at the first boss (Prophet Skeram or Kurinaxx) they are presented with an interactive obelisk object.
- This object is enabled by default which represents the baseline difficulty of the raid.
- Raid groups that wish for an additional challenge may deactivate the obelisk. Doing so will add difficulty and sanity-based mechanics to the encounters and provide the raid with a finite number of attempts in which to defeat the next 3 bosses.
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- If the raid has no attempts remaining when they defeat a boss, the bonus chest will no longer be present and the next obelisk will no longer be able to be interacted with.
- Defeating the boss with attempts remaining will activate a bonus chest, containing additional rewards. However, daring players may refrain from opening the chest and continue onward in the raid with the attempts remaining and deactivate the next boss’s obelisk to continue descending into madness.
- After every third boss, the raid will reach a “checkpoint” and be able to open their chest and collect the rewards accrued to that point without ending their descent into madness run. The checkpoints occur after defeating the following bosses:
- Battleguard Sartura or Moam
- Princess Huhuran
- C’thun
- Due to the nature of this new challenge, the Season of Discovery version of Ahn’qiraj is now expected to be completed in the following order:
- Prophet Skeram → Bug Trio → Battleguard Sartura → Frankriss the Unyielding → Viscidus → Princess Huhuran → Twin Emperors → Ouro → C’thun
- Kurinnaxx → General Rajaxx → Moam → Buru → Ayamiss → Ossirian
- Based on feedback from previous phases of raid content, the baseline number of rewards per boss has been increased in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj & Ruins of Ahn’QIraj and fewer power-affecting rewards come from the bonus chests. Most items coming from the bonus chests are tradeskill-related or cosmetic in nature, but there are a few bonus items scattered throughout the bonus chests as well.
Please note that any power-affecting item that can be obtained from the bonus chests can also just drop normally.
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Nightmare Grove
- The four Dragons of Nightmare world bosses have been reimagined as a single raid instance housing all four encounters called the “Nightmare Grove”
- Players may access the nightmare grove through the Emerald Dream portals scattered around the world.
- Players may choose which boss they want to start with by going to a specific portal somewhere in the world and each boss is accessible at a predefined location for that boss:
- Emeriss - Duskwood
- Lethon - Feralas
- Taerar - Ashenvale
- Ysondre - Hinterlands
- Defeating one dragon spawns a portal that leads to the next in sequence, so players can fight all four without leaving the instance.
- Each Dragon has new and unique mechanics to Season of Discovery.
Items and Rewards
- Most item rewards from Ahn’Qiraj and the Dragons of Nightmare has been retuned and reworked in some way.
- Players who complete the Descent into Madness challenges in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj may encounter items known as a Void-Touched Emblems.
- Equipping this Emblem and right-clicking any equipped weapon that drops in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj will prompt a visit from a certain familiar friend and convert that weapon into a “Void-Touched” variant with a special cosmetic effect.
Developers’ notes: We really liked the Molten and Shadowflame weapon variants in previous phases, but based on feedback and our own experiences raiding in previous phases we acknowledge that it could feel bad to get a “normal” version of one of these weapons and then have the special flashy version drop afterwards. For this new cosmetic effect we’ve decided to allow you to apply it to any equipped weapon that drops in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj rather than requiring a fully separate weapon drop with the special cosmetic appearance.
- There are many new professions recipes available from a variety of locations including the Ahn’Qiraj raids, Nightmare Grove, and various reputations.
- Additionally there are several new crafting components related to many of these new recipes available in Silithus and within the Ahn’Qiraj raids.
- There have been several adjustments to the Cenarion Circle reputation process and rewards.
- Rank 14 PvP Weapons have also seen an update and overhaul.
- Darkmoon Faire decks have returned, and the original 4 max-level decks have been reworked for Season of Discovery.
- A new Toy vendor has been added to Booty Bay. This vendor will sell a variety of new toys as well as older toys from previous Season of Discovery level-up phases for those that missed them. These toys may be purchased with Tarnished Undermine Reals.
- As with previous phase toys these may all be found in the player’s keyring storage when purchased.
And that covers all of the PTR changes for World of Warcraft Season of Discovery. You can check out the official post, here.
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