- Author: Taladril
- Date: November 27, 2020
- Updated: December 21, 2020
- Expansion: WoW Classic
Blizzard has announced today one of the largest changes to how the game will work in Classic versus how it worked in Original WoW. The Scourge Invasion previously had a cap of 150 defended zones in the outdoor areas and a 3 week maximum event time for the event. Since then, the community has seen how to optimize the game and knows the strength of the Consecrated Sharpening Stones and Blessed Wizard Oils only obtainable through quest turn ins from Necrotic Rune farming.
Blizzard wanted to give the community more time to allow for the higher realm populations to properly be able to compete in Naxx as well as not be stressed about the limited time of the event. With that in mind, they are changing the cap of outdoor defended zones to 300 and increasing the length of the event to one week after 300 zones have been defended. This will put the total event time out to a maximum of December 31st, allowing for ample rune farming and enjoyment of the event.
The Scourge Invasion will still release at the same time as Naxxramas on December 3rd. Make sure your Naxxramas Attunements are ready to go so that you can jump in and start raiding immediately.
Following the release of WoW Classic patch 1.13.6 on December 1, we’ll open Naxxramas and kick off the Scourge Invasion on December 3 at 23:00 CET.
The Scourge Invasions coming to WoW Classic next week have been adjusted in some ways that differ from how they were originally configured to operate in 2006. Here’s a look into the details behind that.
Original WoW
On June 20, 2006, Scourge Invasions began, including bonus dungeon bosses, vendors, quests, and a series of undead invasion outdoor events. The Invasion part of the event came in three stages. Necrotic Shards spawned in each zone being attacked and are surrounded by undead enemies which must be defeated to destroy the Shard. They most notably drop Necrotic Runes, which were used as quest objectives and as currency to purchase Consecrated Sharpening Stones and Blessed Weapon Oils.
The stages progressed per-realm. The first stage ended when 50 zones were defended, the second at 100, and the third ended at 150 zones defended. At the end of each stage, any player on that realm could speak with NPCs in capital cities to receive an item with limited charges that provided a minor scaling stamina buff for 1 hour. Once a total of 150 zones were defended, the invasions portion of the event ended permanently.
Regardless of the number of zones defended, the rest of the features of the Scourge Invasion event were configured to end after three weeks, taking away all bonus dungeon bosses, vendors, quest NPCs, and vendors.
WoW Classic
Given the number of endgame players per realm nowadays, as well as how much more knowledgeable players are when it comes to optimizing gameplay, we feel that it is pertinent to make several changes to the event. We calculated that it would be easy for some realms to be completely done with the invasion portion of the event in less than five days, so our primary goal is to allow more time for players to participate and not feel rushed.
The number of zones needed to complete each stage has been increased to 100/200/300.
The total duration for the bonus dungeon bosses, vendors, and quest givers has been increased from three to four weeks and will end on December 31.
An additional one-week period has been added, beginning after 300 zones have successfully been defended on each realm. During this extra week, invasions will continue to spawn to allow players a final chance to participate and gather the rewards.
This additional week cannot extend beyond the end date of December 31.
These adjustments feel like a solid way to allow players more breathing room to enjoy Naxxramas and still participate in this one-time event.
Thank you for reading, and we look forward to joining you in Naxxramas at 2:00 p.m. PST on December 3!
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