WoW Forever: tier 1 set is split across all 3 raids

The tier 1 set in WoW Forever is split across all 3 raids, so finishing it means going to each of them. Kris Zierhut and Tim Jones said so in a new interview, adding that a player who only runs 10-player content can still get a lot of it, just not everything. The first raids open on 9 December.

Item level should be the same across all difficulties. The team has learned that raid size does not change how hard encounters are, only how hard the raid is to organise, so loot should not be better because of the number of players. To stop 10-player groups stacking classes, shaman buff totems reach the whole raid, all raid buffs last 1 hour, and players need fewer Blessings.

The roadmap holds 2 big content updates about 4 months apart, each with a 10-player raid, a 20-player raid and new quests. In the upcoming raids, 3 paths open once the first boss is down, and all 3 wings must be finished to reach the last part. Barrow Deeps has 3 entrances, each leading to a different section. The developers see Season of Discovery as a step too far towards modern encounter design, and point to Naxxramas in Era or Season of Mastery for complexity.

Legacy raids such as Molten Core have their place, and the team is starting to explore how to bring them in, with plans to share later. Attunements will stay from time to time but not heavily: Karazhan is about the upper limit, and what Tempest Keep or Mount Hyjal once required is too far.

In PvP, Battlegrounds stay the centrepiece, which lets classes remain different from each other. The frost damage bonus from the 31-point mage talent can be dispelled, which gives opponents a counter. Honor gear is fairly easy to get, the higher rank gear comes from a seasonal grind, and Honor pieces have to be traded in for it.