Prepare for your trip to the Dragon Isles!
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is just on the horizon, and there are plenty of things you can (and should) do before your adventure in the Dragon Isles begins. Some special rewards will become completely unobtainable when the Shadowlands expansion officially ends, while new opportunities open up in Dragonflight’s pre-patch, such as the brand-new Evoker class. There are also a number of things you can do to make sure your transition into Dragonflight is as smooth as possible when the expansion launches on November 28.
How to Prepare for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
There are many ways to prepare for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, both before and after the upcoming 10.0 pre-patch, which introduces a brand-new Hero Class prior to the expansion’s official launch. This list will cover everything being removed in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, as well as how you can prepare for the expansion ahead of time, saving you valuable hours in your race to Level 70.
Earn Soon-to-be Unobtainable Rewards
When World of Warcraft: Dragonflight officially launches on November 28, a number of items will be impossible to obtain, while others will become increasingly difficult. The first of which is the Restoration Deathwalker mount, which requires you to reach a 2,000 Mythic+ rating before Dragonflight launches. If you’re still climbing the ratings, we recommend participating in high Tazavesh and Mechagon keys, as those dungeons allow for more mistakes to be made in comparison to others.
The unique Jigglesworth, Sr mount, and Hero of Fate title will also become unobtainable when Dragonflight releases. To grab your very own slime cat mount, you will need to complete all Shadowlands Fated raids and earn the Fates of the Shadowlands Raids achievement. Completing them all on Heroic will also reward the Hero of Fate title, while Mythic will grant you teleports directly to every Shadowlands raid.
As for other raid-related achievements, the We Are All Made of Stars achievement on both Heroic and Mythic difficulty is also going away in Dragonflight, although this achievement has no rewards attached to it. Back from the Beyond, which awards the Veilstrider title, is another achievement being removed. We highly recommend completing this before World of Warcraft: Dragonflight launches, as this achievement will guide you through the majority of content Shadowlands has to offer before the expansion ends.
Another mount that will be impossible to get is the Carcinized Zerethsteed. Simply defeat The Jailor in the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid on Heroic difficulty and complete the short quest started by the item you will loot from his corpse.
With Shadowlands PvP Season 4 also ending when Dragonflight launches, Season 4’s weapon illusion, Elite PvP armor set, and the Eternal Gladiator’s Soul Eater mount will no longer be earnable. Winning 50 3v3 matches at Elite rank will grant you the mount, while the Elite armor set and illusion are rewarded to players with a 2,100 rating or above.
Finally, you should earn the Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm before World of Warcraft: Dragonflight releases. This mount is rewarded to players who complete the entire Death Knight starting zone in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic, which is included as part of your World of Warcraft subscription.
Try Your Luck at Mythic Raid Mounts
Vengeance and Zereth Overseer are two mounts that have a chance of dropping from Sylvanas Windrunner and The Jailer in the Sepulcher of the First Ones Raid on Mythic difficulty, respectively. From November 16 in NA and November 17 in EU — the launch date of the World of Warcraft: Dragonflight pre-patch — the drop rates for these mounts will decrease massively. We recommend testing your luck before the Dragonflight pre-patch drops, just in case.
Level Your Alts
The Winds of Wisdom buff is another thing leaving when the Dragonflight pre-patch drops on November 16. Windows of Wisdom is an automatic buff that grants the player a whopping 50% experience buff for characters level 10-59, making it a fantastic time to level alternate characters to at least level 58, the level requirement for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s introduction quest.
Create a Dracthyr Evoker — World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s New Race/Class Combo
Players that have pre-purchased World of Warcraft: Dragonflight will be given a sneak peek at the Dragon Isles with the release of the pre-patch. The Dracthyr Evoker will become playable, which is the game’s first-ever race/class combo. The Dracthyr race can only be the Evoker class, and vice versa. Evokers are a Hero Class, similar to Death Knights and Demon Hunters, which means they start at a higher level (58) and in a unique starting zone. In this case, that starting zone is Forbidden Reach, the secret training ground of the black dragonflight.
Dracthyr were once powerful warriors but were forced into a magical stasis for thousands of years in the aftermath of a colossal battle. Suddenly awoken, you must venture into the Forbidden Reach and piece together your fractured memories. Upon completion of the starting experience, you will have a taste of what World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has to offer, and your new Dracthyr Evoker will be more than ready for it.
Customize Your UI
For the first time in its 18-year history, World of Warcraft has a brand new, fully customizable UI and HUD, which is live right now. We know how frustrating fiddling about with settings can be when you’re itching to play a new expansion, so we recommend customizing and testing your UI now, before World of Warcraft: Dragonflight launches.
Update Your AddOns
Outdated AddOns can completely ruin your experience of a new expansion’s launch with technical difficulties and graphical bugs. Updating your AddOns as soon as they’re available is something we positively recommend. AddOn development does take time, however, so updates may not be available straight away. In that case, outdated AddOns should be disabled until an update is downloadable. These can always be reenabled in World of Warcraft’s client itself in the bottom-left corner of the Character Select screen, or via the AddOns menu while playing.
Set Your Talents and Familiarize Yourself with Dragonflight’s Class Changes
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s new Talent system transforms the way characters gain spells and abilities as they level up, introducing a modernized redesign of the game’s old Talent Tree system; this time with both a Class Tree and a Specialization Tree. The changes are already live in-game, so setting your talents ahead of time will allow you to jump straight into new content as soon as you load into the game on launch date. Many specializations and classes have also gone through significant changes, such as the Mistweaver Monk, so testing and playing around with your talents before release can save you valuable time in the future.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight releases on November 28 for PC via the Blizzard Launcher.
- This article was updated on November 13th, 2022
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