Although WoW Patch 8.3 was already released last Wednesday, the fourth season of WoW (buy now € 14.99 ): Battle for Azeroth will not start until January 22, 2020. From that day on, we'll be able to jump into the new Ny'alotha raid challenge, grapple with the Mythic affix Awakened, boost our rating in PvP, sign up for the new Heroic Warfront on the Dark Coast, or challenge the fresh world bosses.

To let you know exactly what's in store for you starting next week, the developers at Blizzard have released a slew of new patch notes for the start of Battle for Azeroth's fourth season. More information about Season 4 can also be found here:

  • WoW: The 4th PvP season of BfA - info on start, rewards and more.
  • WoW Patch 8.3: Schedule for contents of Visions of N'Zoth and Season 4
  • WoW: Official preview of the new raid Ny'alotha, the Awakened City

Official German patch notes for season 4 of WoW: BfA

Updates for dungeons and raids

New raid: Ny'alotha, the Awakened City

Explore Ny'alotha, the Awakened City where nightmares manifest. This twelve-boss raid is set in the void-ridden heart of the ancient Black Empire. There you must face insane heralds and unfathomable horrors before finally facing N'Zoth himself in an all-out battle for the survival of Azeroth.

Ny'alotha, the Awakened City is now available on Normal and Heroic difficulty. The first wing of the raid browser (minimum item level: 410) - Vision of Destiny - will be available next week on January 29.

More info about the raid and the release schedule can be found here.

New affix for mythic dungeons: Awakened

Season 4 has a new affix - Awakened. While it is active, players can discover four obelisks in dungeons that will pull their characters through the Veil into the Shadow World of Ny'alotha. There, a powerful lieutenant of N'Zoth and his servants await them, which they must defeat to prevent this lieutenant from joining the instance's final boss in battle. Once these enemies have been defeated, the party will return to normal reality at the point where they are now. This gives players an interesting way to bypass encounters that doesn't rely on the rogue spell Cloaking Mist or Invisibility.

  • Blood of the Corruptor (Sullied Spire of Ny'alotha): When fighting this anomaly, foul mud causes the ground beneath two heroes' feet to rot, dealing 60,000 damage per second.
  • Samh'rek the Chaos Caller (Entropic Spire of Ny'alotha): Samh'rek sows destruction in battle to live up to his name. He inflicts Cascading Terror on three player characters - a powerful debuff that inflicts a fear effect on all Heroes near those three characters for a few seconds.
  • Urg'roth the Hero Crusher (Brutal Spire of Ny'alotha): Few can withstand the cruel wrath of Urg'roth, who shatters player characters with Spirit Crusher. This spell greatly increases the damage taken by the target for a moderate duration and deals devastating damage to characters who are in Dark Fury.
  • Void Weaver Mal'thir (Cursed Spire of Ny'alotha): This powerful enemy torpedoes the body and mind of champions with the Crippling Pestilence and Gnawing Doubt spells, dealing large amounts of damage and reducing both movement speed and spell speed.

Mechagon - Junkyard and Mechagon - Workshop

Operation: Mechagon will be part of the rotation for mythic keystone dungeons this season in the form of two new instances - the Junkyard and the Workshop. Each of these instances features four bosses whose difficulty has been adjusted for Season 4.

Items and Rewards

New: Corrupted Items

With the start of Season 4, you'll be able to obtain even more spoiled gear from several new sources, including Mythic Keystone Dungeons, PvP activities, and the Ny'alotha, Awakened City raid. Corrupted items are sullied by N'Zoth. They grant incredible power - but that power comes at a price. As you don multiple pieces of corrupted equipment, you'll notice that your spells do more damage or your healing spells are more effective - but at the same time, the corruption begins to affect you in increasingly dangerous ways. At low Corruption levels, you may be slowed down periodically as you take damage - while at high Corruption levels, sinister forces from the Void could attack you at any moment.

You can learn more about corrupted items here.

New Essence: The Formless Void

You can now earn this essence in Ny'alotha, the Awakened City. It grants you new powers and a unique passive effect that gives you some Corruption Resistance.

Mythic Keystone Dungeon Rewards

With Season 4, you can earn all sorts of powerful new equipment rewards.

  • The item level of rewards from normal, heroic, and mythic dungeons at the maximum level has been increased by 30. The lower limit of rewards is now 400 for Normal difficulty, 415 for Heroic, and 430 for Mythic (without a keystone).
  • Season 4 Mythic Keystone rewards have been increased by 30 item levels.
  • Mythic Keystone dungeons with a difficulty of +7 or higher now grant rewards that scale up to item level 465 for Mythic +15.
  • The item level for weekly rewards now increases up to Mythic +15 difficulty, and for this difficulty you will receive an item with item level 475 in the weekly reward chest.
  • In Season 4, capes cannot be captured from weekly reward chests or the Dark Coast Heroic Warfront.
  • All items that are not updated for Season 4 (for example, items from the Eternal Palace or Heroic Warfront: Dark Coast) can continue to be warforged or titanforged, but not corrupted, up to a maximum item level of 455.
  • Starting in Season 4, more than two items can be captured in mythic keystone dungeons with difficulty +16 or higher (previously difficulty +11).

Titan Residuum

You can spend your hard-earned Titan Residue on new Azerite armor pieces and tokens with item level 460 or 475. The cost of previously available azerite armor pieces has been reduced.

Items for professions

  • N'Zoth's servants now drop several new items and recipes for professions.

Mythic Keystone Dungeon Updates

  • The health and damage of enemies in Heroic dungeons has been increased by 25%.
  • The health and damage of enemies in Mythic dungeons (without a keystone) have been increased by 45%. Enemies in normal dungeons remain unchanged.
  • Due to this increase in difficulty, mythical keystones have been decreased by 4 more levels.
  • Bonuses to health and damage of enemies in mythic keystone dungeons are now increased by 10% per difficulty level (previously 8%).

PvP

Welcome to Season 4: Corrupted

With Season 4, you can expect plenty of new PvP content, including the graphically and gameplay overhauled Deep Wind Gorge. Inspired by Arathi Basin, the new Deep Wind Gorge features five objective points that teams fight to control. The key to victory lies in controlling the market, farm, ruins, shrine, and mine, as the first faction to reach 1,500 points wins!

Participants can earn two new Bossy Mounts to match their faction, and the highest scoring players can unlock new Mounts for Notorious Gladiators.

Reward Updates for PvP

  • The item level of rewards from reward chests of all PvP ranks (Unrated, Fighter, Challenger, Rival, Duelist, and Gladiator) has been increased by 30.
  • The item level of end-of-match rewards has been increased by 30 for all PvP ranks.

New Brawl: Swarming Islands

This large-scale brawl adds an additional challenge to the PvP island expedition beaches by increasing the player count from six to twenty on the largest available islands (Fördewald and Jorundall).

When the brawl is active, you can join the fight by opening the dungeon browser (default shortcut: I), selecting the brawl under Player vs. Player, and joining the queue.

World bosses

While many of the greatest threats to peace on Azeroth have been locked away in ancient chambers or pushed back to fortresses at dizzying heights, others still brazenly roam Uldum and the Valley of Eternal Blossoms.

  • Grand Empress Shek'zara: Grand Empress Shek'zara uses her powerful voice as well as swarm guards of the Zara'thik to overwhelm her opponents.
  • Ulmath the Soulbinder: Ulmath is a powerful Merciless who controls two Servants: Moon Priestess Liara and Guardian Tannin.
  • Vuk'laz the Earthbreaker: This living weapon of war seeks to subdue its opponents with devastating physical attacks. In the course of battle, Vuk'laz summons scarabs from the quaking sands to his aid.

New Heroic Warfront: Dark Coast

Battle for the Dark Coast

In Season 4, Warfront: Dark Coast is also open to you on Heroic difficulty. As with the Heroic Warfront Stromgarde, you'll need to coordinate with an organized group of 10 to 20 players to prevail against the enemy's relentless forces. Victorious players can earn item level 460 rewards.

Interact as a raid group with the war map in Boralus or at the port of Zandalar to join the fight. Please note that the option to sign up for the Heroic Warfront "The Battle for the Dark Coast" will not become available until the next time the corresponding faction in that region begins attacking the Dark Coast. Regions where the Battle for the Dark Coast attack cycle is already underway will then gain access to Heroic difficulty the next time the Dark Coast is attacked in Season 4.

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: Visions of N'Zoth is live! German release trailer World of Warcraft from €14.99 From Karsten Scholz
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