The Iron Horde are coming in WoW’s latest patch: Patch The Iron Tide: 6.0.2. There is a lot of new and exciting features coming up in this patch, as a precursor to Warlords of Draenor. So many that it could take a bit to read. We’ve gone through and sorted out the most important bits of the patch notes, for a quick on the go look at what’s in the patch.

It may look big and scary but the list isn’t that long if you take out a lot of what reads as legalese in regards to various skill changes. Here is a list of changes that you absolutely need to know, with the rest residing within the tome of the update. If you're looking for a drill down on class updates, check out our WoW portal.

Features

  • New Character Models: New models for the original eight races of WoW, there are additional emotions in animations, and more facial customization options in the barber shops.
  • Iron Horde Incursion: World event in the Blasted Lands, limited time five-player version of Upper Blockrock Spire for level 90s available for a limited time.
  • Revamped Group Finder: Premade groups are now available, allowing groups to list themselves for PvP and PvE tasks in the premade group list.
  • Quest Log: The quest log has been moved to the map, some quest items are now in the quest tracker and not in your inventory, and the quest tracker sorts by proximity.
  • Inventory: Huge changes. Items now have a color around them indicating quality. Tradeskill items now stack to 200. There is a toy box now that’s like the mount / pet journal, it lets you add certain toy items to it by learning them and keeps track of what you do and don’t have. There is a Reagent Bank where you can store raw materials. There is also finally another Void Storage tab.
  • New Raid Structure: Raids now have flexible player amounts and different difficulty names. It’s now 10-30 for Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic, and 20 for Mythic.

Class Changes

To go into the class changes it would take a time so large, we’d be here all day. If you want to find out what is specifically happening to your class, check out some of our WoD class guides, but otherwise here are the basics.

The stat squish is happening, so numbers are going to get small, but that’s okay because enemies are having their stats nerfed too. They’ve added some stats. All odd unfair abilities have been removed like profession bonuses and racial traits are rebalanced to be generally the same amongst the races.

Hit and Expertise are removed from the game. Buffs have been changed. Healing has been modified to be more tactical and now has less instant heals.

Ultimately, here is what to expect, when you login most of your skills are going to be different, you’ll have a lot less health and mana, and do a lot less damage, but enemies will also be in the same boat. You’ll need to drill down to all the changes, but most of it is just moving it into the stat squish and getting rid of a lot of the crowd control.

Professions won’t have bonuses and healing potions have their own cooldown now shared with healthstones.

There is a complete Glyph rework, most Glyphs were changed,and you automatically learn some as you level up now so you can have the ones that you need the absolute most without having to turn to a Scribe.

To keep people using flexible raid sizes and not min/maxing for the smallest group to make the most of combat rezs, combat rezs now follow a formula based on the raid size as to how many rezs you’ll have, in addition, you gain one charge every x minutes of combat now.

Reforging has been removed.

PvP Changes

Season is now over. All current season gear will be available for honor and conquest points will be converted to honor when the patch goes live.

Battlegrounds return to an every 10 level bracket.

Flag carriers in Eye of the Storm and Deepwind Gorge now get the Focused Assault / Brutal Assault debuffs.

Arena Skirmishes return.

Misc Changes

Guilds no longer have levels, so when you start a new character you won’t have to beg to get into a level 20 guild.

The mount journal has been updated to be more useful, showing mounts that you don’t have and how to get them.

Brawler Guild season is reseting. Challenge Mode season is reseting. You can’t get any of the current challenge mode stuff anymore.

Valor & Justice are gone now, personal loot is now an option for raids and you have to actually loot the boss now.

 


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

Comments

Related Content

Patch 5.4 Profession Changes