Even though the dungeon master has fallen, WoW: Shadowlands still has a Season 4 that runs a bit differently than you are used to. One aspect of this unique season is Blizzard’s experiments with mechanics, for example in raid loot. Soon there will be vendors and upgrade options.
What will change with raid loot? In Season 4 of WoW: Shadowlands, Blizzard’s developers are experimenting with 2 new mechanics regarding the most powerful loot in the game:
- Currency “Puzzling Cartel Dinar” to purchase raid loot from vendors
- “Shards” that you can use to upgrade raid loot
Raid bosses that are marked with the Season 4 affix will give you the strongest loot of the season – “Fated” loot. This has a higher item level than the normal raid loot before Season 4.
The Season 4 affix rotates between the 3 raids of Shadowlands – Castle Nathria, the Sanctum of Domination, and the Mausoleum of the First. This is to ensure that all Shadowlands raids are relevant in Season 4.
You will only receive the “Fated” loot from the raid with the affix. However, if you are looking for a raid item that drops from a boss that is not marked with the season affix, the hunt for the “Fated” version will be harder, as that raid has the affix only every 3 weeks.
The new mechanics aim to lessen the loot bad luck and the lower chances for items from specific bosses due to the rotation. MeinMMO explains the experiments in detail.
However, it does not bring new loot or content but tries out some things – such as raid rotation, possibly including M+ raids.
Some changes are also coming to M+ dungeons. A total of 8 dungeons will offer the possibility to play them on M+. 6 of those are from past expansions such as Legion, Battle for Azeroth, or Warlords of Draenor.
The release date for Season 4 is still unknown.
WoW experiments with raid vendors to reduce loot bad luck
How does the currency work? During Season 4, you can acquire a total of 3 “Puzzling Cartel Dinar” in the raids. This is done via a quest where you must defeat “Fated” bosses that are marked with the Season 4 affix:
- Dinar 1 – 30 kills
- Dinar 2 – 20 kills
- Dinar 3 – 10 kills
- The number of kills may still change
- You will receive the quest upon entering a raid in Season 4
With the currency, you can pay 3 specific vendors, each of whom has loot from one of the Shadowlands raids available. This allows you to choose 3 pieces of the best loot in the game during Season 4.
However, the corresponding bosses that count for the quest cannot be “pushed”, meaning they cannot be infinitely repeated. Not even on different difficulty levels do they count double.
According to the developers, it takes at least 3 weeks to get the first Dinar and up to week 6 to get Dinar number 3. But only if you defeat the maximum number of Fated bosses each time.
Once you have spent all 3 Dinar, the vendors disappear for you and are no longer available in Season 4.
From the vendors, you will receive normal raid loot with an item level between 278 and 285. However, it is “Fated” loot. To also provide heroic or mythic raiders with access, the second new mechanic with the “Shards” helps.
Here you can find a brief outlook on the new WoW expansion:
How does the shard system work? In heroic and mythic raids, each boss has a 100% drop chance for a “Shard” to drop in Season 4.
Currently, it is planned that you can combine 20 of these “Shards” into a new upgrade material. This material can be used to upgrade “Fated” raid loot:
- Normal to Heroic
- Heroic to Mythic
This way, you can upgrade the normal items purchased from raid vendors for the more challenging raids. It is important that only the “Fated” loot you obtain from vendors or the raids marked with the Season 4 affix can be upgraded.
If you want to take a closer look at the developers’ information yourself, you can find the English blog post in the WoW forum here (via blizzard.com).
Overall, the raid experiments create more opportunities to obtain your desired item. However, the chance for specific items goes down due to the rotation.
Through the upgrade options of normal “Fated” items to their mythic level, you can play raids at different difficulty levels more often within a week and then upgrade the items.
This definitely brings a new dynamic to the loot system of the raids, and we are interested in what you think about the “experiments”. Feel free to leave us a comment on the topic.
If you would rather read about the new expansion Dragonflight now, check here: WoW Dragonflight – Everything we know about the new expansion
