World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has been in the launch phase for months as Tuesday’s 9.1 patch is the first piece of content created entirely under Blizzard Entertainment’s work-from-home protocols. Chains of Dominations changes the current Anima Grind and Covenant quests by introducing a hodgepodge of new content for players focused on the endgame.
First – and best known – is the new zone of Korthia, the City of Secrets. Korthia is the next frontier of the Maw and the Covenants emerge to fight back against the jailer. There are two new shouts and a ton of mounts in the area, as well as new gear and quests. If you’re looking for a new horse or bat, this patch is a pretty good time – a total of 45 have been added to the game.
Aside from Korthia, there’s also a raid known as the Sanctum of Domination, and it’s going to be a big story beat for them Shadowlands Occupation. While some of these guys are brand new characters, other enemies are returning from Azeroth. Ner’zhul and Kel’Thuzad can be seen as bosses and Garrosh Hellscream is part of another encounter as the prison guard has been milking his soul for Anima since his death in a different timeline. It remains to be seen whether Garrosh will come home with us like the weirdest couch surfer in the world.
All of the new stuff is exciting, but Blizzard has gone back and changed one too World of Warcraft‘s greatest endgame modes. The familiar environment of Torghast should feel a little less like a pesky ghast for players fighting with the roguelite combat glove.
There are fewer floors per shift and the tower drops 50% more soul ash that can be used to make legendary weapons. Once you’ve turned off a shift, you can complete it again in the same week for a small amount of soul ash in case you just need a bit more to get that Legendary or build a reserve.
There are also new additions to the mode to round it off. Torghast now has a points system with which you can evaluate your runs. The more runs you do, the more you can upgrade with a new talent system called the Box of Many Things. They can remove negative auras, do more damage, etc. In short, the more you Torghast, the better off you are at Torghast.
A major source of player feedback, according to Blizzard, has been frustration with progress, especially when someone hits a hook on a hard shift. “It’s interesting when you think of the games that inspired Torghast, the roguelite and roguelike games,” said lead designer Morgan Day on a phone call with Polygon. “It’s a different relationship in terms of success and in many of these games you never really expect to win.”
He continued, “What we found in the relationship with Soul Ash, Legendaries, when we met the runecutter to speak to him … every time the player lost, it didn’t feel rewarding; it really didn’t feel great. So we wanted to add elements of meta-progression and have more granularity about the meaning of success in Torghast. “
This is especially handy as there are new levels and these will drop Soul Cinders, a new material for building and upgrading Legendaries. The Tazavesh mega-dungeon, the Veiled Market, is another great place to purchase equipment. In future patches, Tazavesh will likely become two separate dungeons for Mythic + runs.
Chains of Domination will be available on Tuesday, but it will take a while for the patch to fully roll out. The raid begins on July 6th and players will have to work their way through the new storyline to learn all of the new lore and secrets.