11.0.2 The War Within.

I got into the Beta so I will be reporting what I find here.

It's been announced that The War Within will go live August 26, 2024. There will be a pre-patch on July 23rd.

See the Development Notes.

Here's a map of Khaz Algar and the various zones: Isle of Dorn, Dornogal, The Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azj-Kahet.

As it's a new expansion, you will be leveling from 70 to 80. Most of the quests will award experience and some gold. A few quests at the start award gear but they're only around item level 408. When you get to level 75, the gear that drops is around 528-545. Hero Talents become available starting at level 71.

At the start, you'll be given the quest "Slept Like a Rock" which is the beginning of the Campaign quest chain. After about 9 quests, you will get to the Isle of Dorn and start earning rep with the Council of Dornogal. There's a large city at Dornogal (towards the center of the Isle of Dorn) with an Inn, a bank with the Great Vault (which requires level 80), auction house and all of the profession trainers. The profession trainers will teach you the new Khaz Algar professions. Talk to an Oathsworn Peacekeeper to give you directions. Note that, since all the Khaz Algar professions start at 1, if you want to change a profession, this would be a good time.

I haven't found any reason to go back to Valdrakken so you probably will want to set your Hearthstone to the Inn in Dornogal (@44.8, 46.6). And, to take advantage of the 200% rested bonus, you'll want to park your toons in an inn or rest area whenever possible.

One new feature of TWW is Warbands. You can visit any bank and create the first tab in the Warband Bank for 1,000 gold. In the Pre-patch, there's a quest chain which eventually earns you a Warband Bank Distance Inhibitor. This allows you to access your Warband Bank from any location (with a two-hour cooldown). You only need to do this quest chain on your first character. The Warband Bank Distance Inhibitor appears on your action bars. If you can't find it there, look in your Spell Book.

Important: If you've switched from leveling your main to leveling an alt, bring up your map and click on the Map Filter in the upper right. Then select the Warband Completed Quests so that those are shown. You will need to repeat those quests while you are leveling each alt.

One of the themes of this expansion is to be more alt friendly. In keeping with that, the flight points learned by any of your characters are available account-wide. You will also acquire a fair amount of BoE gear that drops from mobs. You can put these in your Warband Bank or mail them to your alts.

There are a number of dungeons to be found for the War Within:

Dungeon	Level for Normal	Location
Ara-Kara. City of Echoes	77-80	Azj-Kahet, City of Threads (51.9, 45.4)
Priory of the Sacred Flame	75-80	Hallowfall, Mereldar (41.4, 49.7)
The Rookery	71-80	Dornogal, Keepers Terrace (35.7, 37.4)
The Stonevault	73-80	The Ringing Deeps (47.1, 10.7)
Cinderbrew Meadery	80	Isle of Dorn, Cinderbrew Meadery (75.6, 43.4)
City of Threads	80	Azj-Kahet, Wildcamp Ul'ar (46.8, 69)
Darkflame Cleft	80	The Ringing Deeps, Lost Mines (59.5, 22.0)
The Dawnbreaker	80	Hallowfall (54.5, 63.1)

Gear drops for dungeons are currently shown as Normal 548-554, Heroic 580. Mythic 593, and Mythic+ 597.

There is one raid shown on the map - Nerub-ar Palace in Azj-Kahet @36.0, 67.8.

Gear drops for the raid are currently shown as RF 584-593, Normal 597-606, Heroic 610-619 and Mythic 623-632.

A new feature being introduced in TWW is Delves.

Getting ready.

You probably should empty out your bags and your bank. Even with the new Warband Bank and, the fact that the quests so far don't drop anything very useful, it may not be necessary, but it would help in that you wouldn't have to discard your junk items quite so often.

Clean out your quest log. You probably have some dungeon and raid quests that you're never going to get back to and you may need the space for TWW.

Should you stock up on healing potions and food? Maybe, unless you're a Demon Hunter and you can feast on the souls of your victims. I suppose it depends on how well-geared you are. The Campaign trail is well designed in that the mobs you face will be at or below your current level and, if you are well geared (like around 500, but maybe as low as 400), the fights are pretty easy. Just beware that you may come across level 80 characters (some, but not all of them are denoted on the map by a cross in a small circle) and they need to be avoided until you reach level 80.

If you decide to forge your own path, beware that there are level 75 mobs in The Ringing Deeps, level 78 mobs in Hallowfall and level 79 mobs in Azj-Kahet.

If you do need some food, you can buy Chalcocite Lava Cake from the Inn Keeper in Dornogal. This is better than any Dragonflight foods. And the first new potion that Alchemists can make is Algari Healing Potion which is much better than the Refreshing Healing Potion from Dragonflight.

Before the expansion goes live, I would spend your various Insignia to clean those out of your bags, especially if you have a use for Polished Pet Charms or Battle Pet Bandages. Keep in mind that the Insignia are account-bound so you can pass them off to your alts who may have more use for them.

Note that all of your Awakened Crests and Flightstones will be zeroed out soon after the start of the expansion. So, if you still have gear that you want to upgrade, you should do that now.

If you are low on Darkmoon Prize Tickets, you might want to visit the Darkmoon Faire during the week starting the first Sunday of each month and do some quests there to build up your supply. It takes ten Darkmoon Prize Tickets to purchase one Darkmoon Top Hat. But don't buy the top hats until you are ready to use them as they only last until the end of the Darkmoon Faire week.

As for getting to the Darkmoon Faire, there's a portal to Stormwind in the Foundation Hall in Dornogal @41.1, 23.1.

So once TWW goes live and you have picked up level 1 of your Khaz Algar professions (including cooking and fishing), plan to visit the next Darkmoon Faire to buy your top hats and use them for the 10% renown and experience buff for 1 hour. They can be purchased from Gelvas Grimegate @48, 64.8. Also, while at the Faire, do the profession quests there to gain 3 levels in each of your Khaz Algar professions. Note that while the 10% buff sounds small compared to the 200% rested bonus, the rested bonus only applied to killing monsters.

If you want, you can turn on War Mode for a 10% XP bonus for completing quests and killing monsters while leveling. Beware, though, there will likely be plenty of horde working on the same quests.

If you are going to be farming an area for a while (skinning, for example), consider dropping a Battle Standard of Coordination for a 15% XP boost while killing creatures.

Pro tip: It turns out that the item level of the gear that's awarded when you turn in quests increases as you level. So, it's tempting to hold onto the quests until you reach level 80 and then turn them in.

You can't really do that with Campaign Quests as this would put the Campaign on hold. Furthermore, as for the side quests you come across in the Isle of Dorn and Dornogal, the gear awards which start out at 408 at level 70 top out at item level 483 at level 73 so these may not be too useful to you.

As for The Ringing Deeps, the gear awards from quests are around 467 at level 72 and these top out at 515 at level 75, so these may be of some use. In Hallowfall, the quest awards are around 506 at level 74 and these increase to around 541 at level 80.

So here are the side quests I've found so far which award gear (and are worth waiting until you reach 80 before turning them in):

Hallowfall:
Sampling Steam, The Hallowfall Gate (41.1, 21.5)
Suspicious Minds, Dunelle's Kindness (68.0, 44.3)
Sous, Growing Hollow (69.9, 32.6)
Remembrance for the Fallen, Mereldar (43.2, 56.4)

Azj-Kahet:
Scarab Scouting, Rak-Ush (75.1, 80.7) (This is a part of quest chain that starts with It's Rough to Be a Bug!, Rak-Ush (74.9, 83.5)
The Fruits of Our Labor, Silen Ward (59.9, 54.2)

So once you reach 80, then what?

You will want to gear up. One of the easiest Great Vault awards is to do 3 Delves or World Activities. This will award you a piece of 571 gear for Tier 1 Delves. The second and third Delve slots open with 6 & 12 Delves or World Activities. For Dungeons, you need to complete 1, 4 or 8 Heroic, Mythic or Timewalking Dungeons. However, before you can queue for random heroic dungeons, you need to get your item level to 551 or higher.

World quests don't qualify as World Activities. Instead see World and Zone Events.

When Season 1 starts (scheduled for September 10th), Nerub-ar Palace Raid opens and there will be three more slots for defeating 2, 4 and 6 raid bosses.

Note that, if you reach level 80 before finishing the Campaign Quests, you will still want to work on those. There are 7 campaign quests in Hallowfall which award 538 gear at level 80 and 8 campaign quests in Azj-Kahet that award 551 gear at level 80 and these 15 quest awards are all for different gear slots. Furthermore, once you finish the Azj-Kahet campaign quests, you are then directed back to Dornogal where you can complete the quest "Surface Bound" which opens access to World Quests. (This only needs to be done on one character as it opens up World Quests for your entire Warband).

So, the Campaign quests are a good way to get a basic set of gear. Furthermore, you can continue on the Campaign trail for more gear upgrades and to obtain Valorstones (see below).

For item upgrades, visit Cuzolth in Dornogal (@51.9, 42.0). The new currency is Valorstones, replacing Flightstones, and the new crests are Harbinger Crests, replacing Awakened Crests. There are 4 levels of Harbinger Crests: Weathered, Carved, Runed and Gilded. See the new Upgrade System.