To prepare for Patch 9.1 of World of Warcraft, you should complete 3 tasks – and avoid 3 things, even if they are tempting.
Even though there is still no official release date for Patch 9.1 Chains of Domination, the update is taking shape. In addition to major revisions for Torghast and meaningful improvements to “Mythic+”, the patch has a lot to offer. It’s slowly but surely time to think about what activities to complete before the release, as those who miss their chance now may regret it later.
We present you here a list of things you should definitely do before Patch 9.1 – and what you can easily skip.
3 things you should do before Patch 9.1
Let’s start with the three things you should complete before Patch 9.1. These are things that either provide you with a small head start or will simply not be obtainable in Patch 9.1.
Get the Malevolent War Spider
Even if you may not be a PvP player at heart, no one should miss out on this cool mount. To obtain the Malevolent War Spider, you must win in the arena or in rated battlegrounds while maintaining a certain rating.
Interestingly, Blizzard has drastically lowered the rating requirement. Previously, you had to achieve victories while having a rating of 1,400 or higher.
Now a rating of 1,000 is sufficient. Even better: with losses at this rating, you hardly lose any rating. You cannot drop below a rating of 1,000.
Each victory brings you closer to the Malevolent War Spider.
Depending on which mode you play, there are varying amounts of points that bring you closer to the spider. If you play in 2vs2, you need about 240 victories; in 3vs3, this number drops to around 100.
Since the spider will no longer be available with Patch 9.1 and may only be accessible later (again via PvP), you should seize the opportunity.
Collect Soul Ash in advance
In Patch 9.1, there are not only new ranks for the “old” legendary items but also completely new Legendaries. To craft these items – whether on your main character or on alts – you will need Soul Ash.
Soul Ash has had no cap for several weeks now and can theoretically be farmed endlessly – only limited by the weekly cap. The accumulated Soul Ash can be sent to other characters in Patch 9.1 to give them a significant boost.
If you want a small head start here, you can start collecting large amounts of Soul Ash to later transfer it between characters as needed.
If you don’t want to bother with that, you will need to run a few more Torghast runs in Patch 9.1.
There is no significant damage done if you are currently not in the mood for the Tower of the Damned. In the best case, you will save several hours later.
Also, keep in mind that the amount of Soul Ash received in Patch 9.1 will increase significantly. So even if you don’t want to force yourself into Torghast right now, you won’t incur a significant disadvantage.
Fully upgrade your Covenant Sanctum
Even though we advise against farming Anima in bulk right now, you should primarily invest the resource in upgrading your Covenant Sanctum.
By doing so, you will unlock many useful things, such as a teleport network, new quests, or additional reputation factions, as well as three achievements that will increase your Anima gain in the long run.
If you upgrade all your Covenant buildings to Rank 1, 2, and 3, you will increase the number of Anima tokens from world quests, dungeons, and other content by 1, 2, and 3, respectively. This can increase the Anima gain in the future in many cases.
Since you will also unlock transmogs and mounts through various contents (like the Queen’s Conservatory), you should spend some time on these contents. The less you have to worry about it in Patch 9.1 when new content is on the horizon, the better you can benefit from the increased Anima gain.
You will unlock access to the rewards now, but the rewards themselves when you benefit from the maximum Anima gain.
If you do want to farm Anima, our comprehensive Anima farming guide can help.
3 things you don’t need to worry about anymore
Now let’s move on to things you don’t need to worry about anymore. Either because the task will soon be completely unnecessary or because the respective activity can be completed much faster in the upcoming Patch 9.1.
Increasing Glory level on alts
If you have several characters at level 60, you need to play through the Covenant campaign with all of them and especially increase the Glory level to reach Rank 40 and thus unlock all previous bonuses.
Here the thought might suggest itself that it’s best to complete this before the big patch – but that’s not necessary.
After the release of Patch 9.1, there will be opportunities to catch up quickly to level 40. Through a quest series, you should be able to completely skip the first 40 ranks and start on equal footing with all other players.
Of course, if you want to play the alt in endgame until then, you can still collect Glory now. However, if you would rather struggle with that activity, you don’t need to think about it any further for now.
Farming Anima excessively
Even though we have recommended upgrading the buildings in your Covenant Sanctum above, you should refrain from further Anima farming. This is because the Anima gain in Patch 9.1 will be accelerated drastically. There are 2 factors responsible for this:
Flying: Early in Patch 9.1, you will unlock flying, allowing you to travel faster from world quest to world quest and complete many of those quests much more quickly. This will significantly boost your “Anima per hour”.
More Anima upgrades: Throughout Glory levels 41 – 80, you will unlock two additional Anima bonuses, which will further increase the amount of Anima received from world quests by one token each.
These two changes combined will likely make you regret how fast Anima farming can become in two to three months. The time invested so far may then feel like a waste of time.
Selling crafting materials
You heard that right. If you currently have a lot of herbs, meat, or fish stashed away – hold on to them.
On most realms, prices are currently very low. This is due to the fact that the current raid content is exhausted and only a few players still use potions or buff food for M+15 and above. The market is simply saturated, and there are often more resources than player demand.
This is unlikely to change until Patch 9.1 when the new raid “Sanctum of Domination” launches.
The likelihood is high that demand for potions, enchantments, buff food, and similar consumables will only increase again in a few weeks. Until then, you should hold on to your items.
Because: Patch 9.1 does not bring fundamentally new potions or meals. What is good now will still be important in the next update. Keep an eye on the prices and decide when to sell.
Do you have any tips, tricks, and hints on what players should definitely do before Patch 9.1?
