Classic: Season of Mastery Release Date

November 16th

That's right. Season of Mastery is soon. Real soon. November 16th is right around the corner! More and more changes have been coming in about Season of Mastery and they have been received quite well from the Classic community. A very nice change of pace from #nochanges if I say so myself. One of the biggest and notable things has been the increased difficulty to raid bosses both in their increased health pool and mechanic pool. We talked about some of these changes in our last Season of Mastery post here


Above is a breakdown of all the boss changes by Staysafe TV, a popular Classic WoW content creator. Some notable changes include

• Magmadar spawns Core Hound adds

• Garr spawns suicide bomber adds that target a random player and explode

• Garr adds become immune to banish at 50% and also enrages if all adds die

• Baron Geddon spawns 3 living bombs

• Ragnaros has a forced submerge at 50% where adds spawns

All in all the new changes are making raids such as MC a bit spicier again. Upfront this looks awesome and has me thinking what about the other raids. Sure these mechanics will become null as soon as people get geared but think about the speed of the content release. Due to SoM being jammed into a 1 year cycle this means less loot per player before the next raid is out. 2 pieces per boss with 40 players was already spreading the gear distribution thin but if you add the sped up content release we're talking some really under geared players every time a new raid comes out. Mix in the new mechanics and difficulties we are looking at a brand new Classic experience. C'Thun and Naxx might get really fun.

Some more additions to SoM are possible ways they are combatting bots and mage farms. For rogue BRD pickpocket farms, a popular bot spot, they are adding a debuff called THIEF! that states "Given the recent string of thievery, enemies around yo have stashed most of their belongings elsewhere." You gain this debuff after pickpocketing about 10 NPC's and once the debuff is on you the only thing you can pickpocket is "Pocket Lint" which vendors for 2 copper.



Mage boost nerfs include the following

• Stratholme – All Undead creatures in Stratholme will now gain an immunity to snares 30 seconds after entering combat and gain immunity to roots after an additional 30 seconds of combat.

• Maraudon – Many creatures in Maraudon will gain an immunity to snares 30 seconds after entering combat and gain immunity to roots after an additional 30 seconds of combat.

• Mauradon – 30 seconds after gaining immunity to root effects, enemies gain 50% increased movement speed.

• Maraudon and Stratholme – Any type of crowd control (except snares or roots) will reset the snare immunity, root immunity, and speed buffs.

• Zul’Farrak – Zombie Trolls in Zul’Farrak now drop fewer lucrative treasures. Most of the loot previously dropped by Zombie Trolls has been redistributed to other enemies in the dungeon.

These are great starts. It leaves open SM, SFK, Stockades, RFC, and a few other low level boosting opportunities but maybe those are to come.

Lastly there are a few more additions to the Hardcore achievements listed such as Survivor of the Damned, Survivor of the Old God, and Survivor of the Shadow Flame. Last time we mentioned the addition of Survivor of the Firelord. These seem to be achievements for not dying while killing the last bosses of raids. This is a clear support for the Hardcore community but it's also most likely achievable for just not dying on the boss even if your character has died before. Time will tell.