Greetings, Heroes!

We’ve heard your requests to merge Mistblade 1 and Mistblade 2 so that your strong, seasoned characters can team up with your newer but equally cherished ones. We understand the appeal of this option for catching up, but we’ve also been concerned that the novelty might wear off quickly once players realize they’re mostly clearing heroics with well-geared Mistblade 1 characters that don’t necessarily need more progression. Additionally, we’ve received feedback that MB2 progression, particularly for alts, felt repetitive and challenging to grind through multiple times. In light of this, we’ve been brainstorming ways to enhance the experience, especially for when the initial excitement of the merge subsides.

We’re particularly excited to introduce fresh, custom progression mechanics that we wanted to roll out as soon as possible. However, we acknowledge that many of you felt the timeline was a bit rushed.

After internal discussions, we’ve extended the merged Mistblade by three weeks, accommodating your feedback while keeping our schedule on track. Our focus for next year will be on Legion development, which means Sheilun will be the final fresh MoP launch for the foreseeable future. After Sheilun completes its content cycle (with approximately 4–5 months per content phase), it will merge into Mistblade. After some preparation and pre-patches, Mistblade will then transition to Legion. In true progression-to-expansion (PTE) spirit, this means you’ll keep everything you’ve earned on all your characters.

Our goal is for you to enjoy one more MoP run, complete with new quality-of-life (QoL) features, before we all move on to the fel-greener pastures of Legion, though we may revisit MoP in the future if the interest is there. Below, we’ve outlined some key QoL improvements we’ve planned.

PvE Improvements

We’ve received feedback on the speed and unpredictability of gearing and doing the legendary quest, and the ease of heroic tier content for experienced groups. Here’s how we plan to address these issues:

Bonus Rolls

In each tier, the weekly 3 bonus tokens will cost 50 charms, and you’ll be able to earn these charms through at least one weekly RHC quest. After completing this quest, you’ll unlock a repeatable (and pricey) quest, allowing you to buy additional tokens for gold. Furthermore, the two world bosses of each tier will drop a bonus token upon defeat, and bonus rolling a world boss will refund your token without affecting BLP progression. The two world bosses each tier will, naturally, include an un-gated Ordos.

Legendary Quest

To make the questline more accessible, the PvP quest can be completed through PvE activities, by achieving Silver in Challenge Mode or Gold in any Proving Grounds role. We’ll increase the Valor Points cap for all characters, and the current week’s earned Valor points will automatically count toward the Valor quest when first picked up, avoiding any unnecessary time-gating. Additional Valor sources and Prince reputation will also be available, and we’ll streamline collection quest drop rates.

Finally, we’re introducing two weekly quests, one for a random normal mode boss, and one for a random easier heroic boss, to earn account-wide tokens redeemable for any quest item from the chain, helping you accumulate progress for your alts ahead of time or even accelerating your main’s progression.

Heroic+ Mode

In every raid, before the first boss is defeated, the group leader can activate a Heroic+ mode, giving mobs increased damage and health at certain levels. Each level rewards account-wide tokens that you can redeem for that tier’s gear at carefully balanced prices. Your Heroic+ level is locked for that week upon first selecting it, and opting out of it will lock you out for that week. Achieved Heroic+ levels will be visible in logs and leaderboards.

Log Pushing

For those interested in pushing big numbers, we’ll include an opt-in buff for Challenge Modes, which will be visible on the leaderboard.

Duplicate Protection

To help with item distribution, we’ll implement duplicate protection in 10-man raids. Warforged versions of the same regular item, however, will not count as duplicates.

PvP Improvements

We recognize that the Malevolent season has unintuitive and alt-unfriendly gear progression. To address this, we’re bringing it in line with other seasons by making the low-tier PvP weapons available for Honor Points, lowering season total/rating requirements for gated gear, and adding a Conquest-gear-for-Honor vendor, unlocked account-wide after your main reaches 25,000 Conquest points.

Additionally, to facilitate gearing, we’re increasing the initial Conquest cap and weekly catch-up amounts, making sure to still reward those who cap each week. We are integrating 3v3 solo queue into the rating-gated rewards structure, and for that end, we’ve improved solo queue team building to create fairer matches, even during off-peak hours with wider rating disparities.

Regarding the introduction to PvP, we are pleased to announce that we will be expanding the lineup and rewards of our existing Mistblade 2 PvP quests to include account-wide currency rewards. Additionally, we will implement role enforcement to create more balanced battleground matches. In the future, we will also introduce a PvP-oriented character boost service designed to provide an alternative gear set and help new players get started in battlegrounds. Furthermore, we will be increasing the Honor rates on the server.

For our most elite battleground players, we are enhancing the Conqueror's Challenge by providing additional ranking slots and more permanent titles for repeated winners.

In the arena, we will introduce a new set of cosmetic rewards featuring previous expansion Elite gear, allowing players to showcase their exceptional skill and impressive ratings. However, we want to emphasize that players found systematically farming their own AFK alts for rating will be subject to periodic removal from the leaderboard, along with the loss of any ill-gotten gains, regardless of their cosmetic nature.

General Updates

All existing cross-faction features will remain intact, and we are excited to incorporate guilds into this system. Racial swapping will be available from the beginning to enhance character flexibility. To assist players with alternate characters, Motes and Spirits of Harmony will become account-bound. We will also be increasing the maximum adjustable XP rate, with an option to go below 1 for those seeking a greater challenge. Additionally, profession skill point rates will be increased for alts.

Thank you for your continued support and trust. We hope you enjoy the new additions and adventures we have prepared for you. We look forward to seeing you all on Sheilun!

Best regards, Stormforge Staff