While Hearthstone returns to Warcraft’s roots by exploring the Barrens, WoW’s most recent Shadowlands expansion pulled players into Azeroth’s afterlife. Basically a whole parallel universe by itself, the Shadowlands are in turmoil after the Jailer, the expansion’s main antagonist, broke free again. With the help of Sylvanas Windrunner, he strives to bring chaos to both Azeroth and the Shadowlands.
Patch 9.1, also called “Chains of Domination”, continues to tell the greater story of the Shadowlands and the covenants protecting them. Players will be able to explore a new zone as well as a challenging new raid zone called Sanctum of Domination. As a sister site of wowhead.com, we’ll take a quick look at all the big and small content updates coming to World of Warcraft on June 29!
Our sister site Wowhead spared no expenses to create the most comprehensive guides about all the new content coming with Patch 9.1!
Table of Content
New Zone: Korthia, City of Secrets
Not much is known about Korthia, also known as the City of Secrets.
Introductory quests leading into the new zone located within the Maw indicate that this place has been pulled into the “In-Between”, the ether between life and death of Azeroth, before it was eventually chained to the Maw by the Jailer. It seems that Shadowland’s villain is on the search for numerous secrets about the First Ones, the makers of the universe, which are hidden within Korthia, to use those against them.
In terms of content, Korthia offers everything a major new zone could possibly offer: two new factions, a separate world-boss encounter, daily quests, and numerous collectibles such as mounts, toys, and pets.
New Dungeon and Raid: Tazavesh, the Veiled Market and Sanctum of Domination
Similar to major content updates of the past, WoW’s 9.1 introduces yet another so-called “mega-dungeon”. In Tazavesh, the Veiled Market, five players will be able to discover a bazaar full of mysteries and secrets around the mysterious Brokers, a race of sentient energy entities who populate and archive the secrets of the Shadowlands.
All we know about Tazavesh so far is that it features a “heist that spans the realms”, implying that the dungeon basically serves as a trans-dimensional duty-free shop that also provides glimpses into different times and dimensions. Besides all the interesting story and lore tidbits to be found, Tazavesh offers a whole lot of new loot that scales up to item level 233 – but only if you tackle the dungeon’s special hard mode!
Tazavesh Dungeon Overview
Tavazesh Hardmode Introduction
And what would a major WoW content patch be without its new raid dungeon? In 9.1, the Sanctum of Domination poses as the Jailer’s headquarters within the Maw. To oppose his attack on Oribos, Bolvar Fordragon and the four covenants plan to meet their enemy in his home.
Starring a total of 10 bosses, the raid also continues to tell the story of Sylvanas, once leader of the Forsaken and now right hand of the Jailer. After Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria, Lady Windrunner will serve as the second final raid boss of the Shadowlands – and players can’t wait to advance to the next chapter in one of Warcraft’s most controversial character arcs.
Check out Wowhead’s comprehensive Sanctum of Domination guide, including encounter journal entries, loot tables and more!
System Upgrades
Besides newly introduced content, several game systems will receive significant updates or new subsystems:
Covenant Updates and Increased Renown Cap
You might’ve already guessed it: The storyline of each individual Covenant continues with the introduction of Patch 9.1.
The battle against the Jailer’s forces closes in, and Bolvar and his friends try to gain every advantage they can – because their enemies do as well. Sylvanas managed to convert King Anduin through the Jailer’s evil machinations, while the fate of mad Tyrande, another Alliance leader, is also to be decided.
While the Covenant campaigns continue to tell the overarching story of the Shadowlands, gameplay updates are inbound as well. Players will be able to further increase Renown with their covenant, unlocking new nodes in the soulbind trees or access to exclusive mounts as well as covenant-exclusive legendaries!
Covenant Updates Overview
Covenant Soulbinds Updates
Covenant Legendaries
Torghast Upgrades and Scoring System
Team 2 listened to player feedback and tries to improve the gameplay experience of Torghast. The replayable end-game instance that has been the main source of Soul Ash, a reagent used for legendary crafting, turned from a highly anticipated rogue-like dungeon experience into a weekly chore to keep up with endgame requirements.
In 9.1, Torghast will finally receive a scoring system, enabling players to obtain rewards even if they don’t clear all floors of their run. In addition, the scoring system rewards both clear speed as well as overall completion and will also remove the unpopular death counter. In terms of core updates, developers add new anima powers, so-called blessings as positive side-effects for players, a new bonus floor with additional rewards, and even more layers to complete.
Torghast Scoring System Introduction
Mythic+: Rating System and “Tormented” Affix
Mythic+-players are in for a treat with 9.1: Blizzard finally managed to develop their own in-house rating system. That’s right. Gone are the days where players had to update their external rating provided through raider.io’s webpage and addon – a very similar rating is now tracked within the game. We still don’t know how rating acquisition will work exactly; what we do know is that a certain Mythic+ rating will be bound to the new Keystone Master achievement that gates item upgrades with Valor points.
As usual, a new patch also rings in the new Mythic+ season, which introduces a new seasonal affix. The “Tormented” keyword adds lieutenants to each dungeon that provide different buffs to the final boss of the dungeon if they stay alive during the dungeon run. If players invest the additional time and plan to defeat the Tormented lieutenants, they will be rewarded with different anima powers instead.
Check out Wowhead’s full Mythic+ Rating Guide as well as their Tormented Seasonal Affix Introduction!
PvE Tuning and PvP Shadowlands Season 2
Finally, PvP players get their piece of the cake and will be happy to see numerous PvP changes introduced with 9.1. PvP items have been redesigned to increase their overall power in PvP: They now gain 13 item levels in PvP situations such as battlegrounds or arenas compared to PvE gear.
Additionally, all classes receive a whole lot of PvP tuning. Together with a comparably small set of PvE changes, Wowhead features individual class guides to get you back on track:
- Death Knight 9.1 Changes
- Demon Hunter 9.1 Changes
- Druid 9.1 Changes
- Hunter 9.1 Changes
- Mage 9.1 Changes
- Monk 9.1 Changes
- Paladin 9.1 Changes
- Priest 9.1 Changes
- Rogue 9.1 Changes
- Shaman 9.1 Changes
- Warlock 9.1 Changes
- Warrior 9.1 Changes
Minor System Updates
As always, a major patch introduces a ton of smaller updates as well like flying in the different Shadowlands regions or the long-awaited availability of single-shoulderpiece transmogrification.
Need more informations about Chains of Domination and World of Warcraft? Feel free to check out wowhead.com!
I’m a big hearthstone fan but I am not a WOW fan. I wonder if there are others like me.
Definitely, I know a lot of people who play Hearthstone but never played or don’t like WoW.
I LOVED WoW, it was one of my favorite games in the history. Played it between 2007 and 2015, with breaks. I usually started the expansion, played for a year or so and then quit until next set. Sadly I no longer have time for an MMO (back in the day I could spend hours every day playing it, right now it’s no longer possible), but I still get tempted to get back from time to time.
I would recommend you and everyone who played WoW to watch Carbot animation about WoW.
But I think most of you already did, so I’ll be quick.
You may argue, because people grow up, and can no longer play like it was in the past.
But I honestly think that WoW was no longer a game to be proud of. It has lost it’s fun.
I tried to limit this only to WoW, but I’m afraid all Blizzard games has suffered the same fate.
I find it hard not to be a WoW fan, honestly. I mean sure, some decisions of the development team were kinda meh (especially lately) but in general it has been an amazing game.