World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor Expansion: Upcoming Patch Prepares Azeroth for Draenor

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World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor Expansion: Upcoming Patch Prepares Azeroth for Draenor
(Blizzard Entertainment)
Zachary Stieber
5/9/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

An upcoming patch to World of Warcraft will prepare Azeroth for the planned Warlords of Draenor expansion.

The Patch 6.0 will include pre-expansion “systems” updates that are planned to go live in the weeks leading up to Draenor’s release.

The patch will include a conversion of the Siege of Orgrimmar to use the new Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties. Both of the former will suport flexible raid sizes and the Group Finder tool, while Mythic will be fixed to a 20-player size.

“At the same time, “stat squish” will be in effect, the new class changes will be live, and Hit and Expertise will no longer be stats on items, so those will be replaced with more useful ones on all existing items. The raid as a whole will be returned for the new numbers and scaling size—overall, it should prove no more difficult than it is currently, and will likely be easier in many places,” Blizzard Entertainment said in a blog post.

The patch will also include the following changes:

  • Flexible Raid difficulty will cease to exist as it does now, and will be removed from the raid queue interface. The new Normal difficulty of Siege of Orgrimmar will offer a similar experience to that of Flexible Raid.
  • The new Group Finder tool will be available, designed to help players create and find groups for Normal and Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar and other cross-realm group content.
  • Siege of Orgrimmar achievements will be relabeled according to the new difficulty structure (e.g. “Heroic: Malkorok” will now be “Mythic: Malkorok”). Credit for these will be retroactively awarded to players who earned them before Patch 6.0.
  • The Garrosh Hellscream “Ahead of the Curve” and “Cutting Edge” Feats of Strength will cease to be obtainable.
    • This means that the Kor’kron War Wolf, awarded by the “Ahead of the Curve” Feat of Strength, will also cease to be obtainable upon release of the pre-expansion Patch 6.0.
  • With the release of Patch 6.0, the drop rate of the Heirloom weapons from Garrosh Hellscream on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties will be significantly increased.
    • Players who have yet to get any Heirlooms will have a 100% (guaranteed) chance of getting a spec-appropriate Heirloom when defeating Garrosh on Normal difficulty or higher.
    • The chance of receiving additional Heirlooms beyond the first will also be increased.