World of Warcraft: The War Within has, overall, enjoyed a pretty solid reception from its broad player base. A surprisingly solid story, a premise that screams high fantasy, and a few quality of life improvements that have made the game even more alt-friendly have all led to a real sense of WoW being back, baby.
But now the real endgame begins — alongside the inevitable judgment of whether The War Within is really as good an expansion as it promises. Released yesterday in the US and today in the EU, this first season brings with it the Nerub-ar Palace raid, Mythic Dungeons, higher-level delves, and a fresh season of PvP. Let’s take a look at the key features, revealed in the pre-release blog on World of Warcraft website (and this handy infographic courtesy of Blizzard).
First up is the Nerub-ar Palace raid. As of September 11, Normal and Heroic versions of the raid are playable, with the first wing available in the Raid Finder. September 18 will see the release of the second wing for the PuG masses, as well as the Mythic difficulty of the raid and Story Mode, a spectacular modern feature that lets players experience the narrative as a group of 1-5, essentially turning it into a small-scale scenario. September 25 will see the third wing hit the Raid Finder.
The raid brings with it modern armor level sets for each class – which, let’s be forthright, will be the main attraction for at least some of you transmogrification freaks. What’s really electrifying is the tokens you can get for these sets are “war related” by defaultThis means you can send them to your alternate accounts, which is a huge advantage for collectors.
As for Mythic+ dungeons, we already have them. Ara-Kara, City of Echoes, The Stonevault, City of Threads, and The Dawnbreaker will be in rotation from The War Within. Meanwhile, The Necrotic Wake and Mists of Tirna Scithe will return from Shadowlands, Siege of Boralus will return from Battle for Azeroth, and Grim Batol from Cataclysm has also been included.
PvP players can start the modern season with their own rewards, allowing players to gradually earn an elite transmogrification set at different ranks (see below) and two mounts: A Sky Mischiefwhich is a terrifying flying Nerubian worm with Horde and Alliance decorations, or a fully armored one Forged Fel Bat.
Delves, more than anything else, are the most intriguing part here — they’re a completely modern type of pseudo-dungeon created for The War Within. While they were playable upon release, they were only available at difficulty 3, which isn’t much of a challenge. Now, difficulty 4 and beyond has been unlocked — and if initial community reaction is to be believed, anything above difficulty 8 it has some kick to it.
Zekvir’s Cave is a “Seasonal Hollow” – meaning you’ll want to destroy it on any difficulty to gain the honor and privilege of wearing it Zekvir’s own spine on his back like some Nerubian serial killer. Do this at level 5 or higher and you will earn the title “Ascension Breaker” by doing this solo will provide you with a coat of paint to fill the empty spaces for your airship.
When it comes to equipment, according to WoWHeaddelves can give you Champion-level rewards starting at level 7, which corresponds to Mythic+ cornerstones 2-6, and Hero-level rewards from the grand vault at the same difficulties — which you’d usually have to go to Heroic Difficulty raids (or high-tier Mythic+ dungeons) for. Not bad.
Overall, that’s not a bad spread of things to work on, especially with WoW’s 20th anniversary just around the corner. I’ll be interested to see if Blizzard maintains its hard-earned community goodwill. After all, solid work is one thing, but maintaining MMO momentum post-launch is another.
