The Wrath of the Lich King Scourge invasion comes in two parts. The first part is a zombie invasion where players are rapidly being turned into zombies. The second part is the invasion of floating necropoli which spawn scourge forces along with agents in various instances.

Zombie Infestation

The zombie infestation is a multi-phased event where every day it (so far) gets worse. Players can be infected with Arthas’s zombie plague in a multitude of ways that gives a debuff which will eventually turn a player into a zombie. Zombies have a ton of special features, including their ability to attack players of both factions, increased health, and an entirely new action bar full of zombie only abilities. The debuff can be cleansed or players can die as a zombie to return back to normal.

Becoming a Zombie

To become a zombie you have to be infected. Another zombie can attack you, you can be attacked by one of the zombies infection skills (some are AoE), you can activate a conspicuous crate in a major city, or kill an infected rat while the event is going on. A debuff will then start counting down giving you some time to go and get it cleansed. The current time is 1 minute (as of October 26) but it has been as high as 10 and appears to change each day as the event advances. So the exact time may be different.

Healing the Infection

Argent Healers will remove the debuff for free or cleanse disease can remove it. If you become a zombie then the only way to return to your normal self is… death.

As of October 26th the fight against the Zombies has nearly wiped out all resistance. Major cities are quickly falling to the hordes of zombies. Argent healers are becoming rarer and rarer to find. Major cities (mostly in Argent Dawn camps) have them along with starting zones, but they are showing up in fewer numbers.

Zombie Infection Repercussions

It is now advised that any new players hold off on making new characters and to avoid any activity (as of October 26th) without the assistance of someone to cleanse the disease. The guards in most major cities are dwindling fast, most newbie zones now are completely guardless and full of the opposite faction or zombies, and the Isle of Quel'danas on most servers is lost due to the high concentration of humanoids on the island.

If you're looking to quest it may be a good idea to hold off for a few days and take a break. If you're looking to visit a major city then go to the lesser used cities like Silvermoon since they're less likely to have mass invasions and plagued guards.

WARNING: ZOMBIES TAKE DURABILITY LOSS ON NPC DEATH This can not be stressed enough.

Zombie Details & Abilities

Zombies lose health over time and replenish it by attacking other creatures. Each auto-attack cures 3% of the zombies health and infects the target. They also have a whole set of interesting abilities which replace all of the players abilities:

• Mangle!: Instant attack for 30% damage and decreases the time until infection (about 15 seconds).
• Retch!: Ground targeted ability that heals zombies, slows non-zombies by 40%, and can spread the zombie goodness.
• Beckoning Groan: Calls up to 4 NPC zombies to follow you if they’re nearby.
• Lurch!: Increases speed by 100% for you and nearby zombies which brings you near normal walking speed. Can be used by a pack of zombies for near continuous run speed.
• Zombie Explosion!: Kills yourself and infects everything near you.
• Additional HP, major speed decrease, and some funky hit rating.

All zombie changes are purged on death (you’ll respawn normal). Argent Healers can 3 shot you if you need to die real fast and Zombie Explosion! is too slow for you.

Zombies can attack players of their own faction along with the enemy faction and be attacked by players of both factions even on PvE realms. Zombies also have their own language and can communicate with the opposite faction as long as the opposite faction members are also zombies.

NPCs can be infected and turned, hostile NPCs will go neutral and scourge will go friendly, and most city leaders are immune to the infection. Quests can be completed, but some will bug up (so it’s best not to go questing), and XP can’t be gained while you’re turned. Durability loss follows the normal rules as well. Most guards will go aggressive to you.

Ninja Zombies

As of right now the debuff only lasts a minute, but that's still enough time to use the fact that your own faction is friendly with you to do some major (but highly annoying) damage. After picking up the disease you can use your fastest travel methods to get to a location with your own allied units and then turn, going unfriendly. This can be useful in heavily guarded areas like major cities since the guards will not attack until the debuff actually turns you.

Large groups of players can also get the debuff at the same time and move to a location (past any Argent Healers) and wreck havoc this way.

Recent Updates

October 26th: Zombie DPS has increased, the incubation period has decreased to one minute, and many Argent Healers are missing. The Scourge Invasion is progressing more and more with new quests opening up. The plague is becoming harder and harder to cleanse with it failing many times on the simple remove disease spells.

Scourge Invasion

The fifth day of the infestation also launched the scourge invasion. We’ll have details on what’s changed as soon as we can play through the content. In the meantime, though, we have details on the new raid boss located in Karazhan.

Tenris Mirkblood

Tenris is located within the kitchen in Karazhan which is above Attumen. Basically you just go up the stairs from the Servant’s Quarters. His death can deliver a rare pet, a few ok items, and can complete the new quest “Chamber of Secrets” which is given by the Argent Emissary near Light’s Hope Chapel. The reward is a bag that when used randomly throws different weapons.

Abilities

Mirror Ability: The player and Tenris share damage. It can be bubbled, feigned, ice blocked, and vanished out of.
Sanguine Spirit: If touched they explode for over 5,000 damage. Stay away from them. They grow in size and get more difficult to dodge and move towards people.

Tactics

The fight is both easy and difficult and depends mostly on gear. Tenris does very little damage but the Sanguine Spirits can explode and wipe a raid easily. So you need to constantly kite him out, have everyone spread out, and DPS him down as fast as possible. When he uses his mirror ability you’ll see a massive red rope between the boss and the player it is on. You have three options: let the person die (or try to heal them), stop DPS and wait for it to end, or let the person get out with feign, vanish, ice block, or paladin bubble.

After the fight you can get your two badges. He drops a two handed axe that can be used as a guitar and has a chance of dropping a rare bat pet.