With Wrath of the Lich King, WoW Classic receives its second expansion. MeinMMO tells you everything you need to know about WotLK Classic.
WotLK Classic will be released on September 27, 2022. at 12:01 AM German time.
The Pre-Patch was released on August 31, 2022. Since then, you can create and play Death Knights.
Yes, the Beta of WotLK Classic is already running. You can still sign up for it, but we don’t know if there will be more invites before the release.
You do not have to purchase the expansion. A running WoW subscription is sufficient to play. More about this on the official website.
WotLK Classic is based on Patch 3.3.5, the last major update of Wrath of the Lich King. This means many classes are already balanced against each other.
Yes, you retain all your characters and all BC servers will be converted to WotLK servers. Burning Crusade Classic will disappear with the release of WotLK. There will initially be no BC-era servers.
You can watch the trailer for WotLK Classic here:
WotLK Classic: New Max Level, New Class, and New Areas
What new content does WotLK Classic bring? With Wrath of the Lich King, you can expect several new features in WoW Classic:
- Level 80 as the new max level
- Northrend with its 10 areas as a new continent with Dalaran as the capital
- the Death Knight as a new class
- Inscription as a new profession
- new dungeons
- new raids, each with versions for 10 and 25 players
- heroic raids
- Barbers as a new feature
- Achievements
- dual talent specialization
If you play Death Knights today in modern WoW, you will notice many differences in WotLK Classic. Death Knights were significantly different back then, could tank in every specialization, and had to pay more attention to their runes.
What will be released? Blizzard has not yet confirmed what the release plan for WotLK Classic will look like. Presumably, the content will be released in phases again, similar to before with WoW Classic and Burning Crusade Classic. At release (Phase 1), you will likely have access to:
- Naxxramas and the Obsidian Sanctum and the Eye as raiding content
- the entire continent of Northrend
- 2 new arenas
- 12 dungeons
What comes after release? Following this, we expect the following content based on how the content was released in WoW earlier:
- Phase 2: Ulduar with Hard Modes
- Phase 3: The Argent Tournament with the Trials of the (Grand) Crusader as raid and the Trial of the Champion as dungeon. Additionally, Onyxia’s Lair was released as a reimagined raid and the Isle of Conquest was introduced as a new battleground
- Phase 4: The Icecrown Citadel as a raid and the Soul Forge, the Pit of Saron, and the Hall of Reflection as dungeons
- Phase 5: The Ruby Sanctum as the final raid
In WotLK, the legendary cinematic for the Wrath Gate awaits you:
WotLK Classic: Differences from the Past
What is different from before? WotLK Classic comes with several changes compared to the version from 2008, some even with new features. For instance, there is a possibility for race and faction changes during the course of the expansion.
One of the key changes is that the Dungeon Finder will not be included in the game to maintain the “Classic spirit” instead.
The large battleground Wintergrasp will also undergo a change and will not appear as an open PvP area. Instead, you will only be able to enter it as an instanced version.
Raids in WotLK Classic will have different restrictions than before: while the heroic and normal versions of the raids share a “lockout”, the respective 10- and 25-player variants do not.
This means: You can defeat bosses multiple times with different group sizes, but not at different difficulties. Moreover, we know that Naxxramas will become harder, but we don’t yet know exactly how that will look.
Additionally, there are some changes to dungeons to prevent boosting. However, this concerns mechanics like the damage of mages and older dungeons, and the changes should not affect the actual WotLK gameplay experience.
