WoW Anniversary Activities

WoW's 15th anniversary event begins today, and will continue through January 7th.

In addition to the usual XP/Rep boost item, you'll also automatically get a Li'l Nefarian pet if you log in.

The other major features are a raid boss-rush and an alternate Alterac Valley brawl.

I've completed the boss-rush, but the AV brawl seems like it will require a pretty major time investment - such that I'm not even sure if I'll finish it.

Let's talk about the bosses:

The Caverns of Time are where the big celebration is going down - there's a whole party atmosphere there, including Leeroy Jenkins himself serving up spicy chicken.

Speaking to Chromie, you can queue up for an LFR group to tackle three bosses each from WoW's first three expansions. Completing all three boss-rushes will grant you the Obsidian Destroyer mount, which is basically like Deathwing in mount form.

Unless my raid leader was mistaken, you have to do all three in order without wiping for it to count, so we would go back if we encountered problems (Ragnaros bugged for us the first time, which was annoying.)

None of the fights are the entire boss encounter - they've picked phases that don't require quite as much close coordination, thankfully.

Here are the bosses you fight, and the phases you do:

Burning Crusade: You start with Lady Vashj, in what is probably the simplest of these fights. Kill off the adds and then just focus her down. She'll spawn poison on the ground, so you'll need to move frequently. Next, you fight Kael'thas, right about when you get the legendary weapons - you'll automatically have the weapon abilities. After killing off the phoenix adds he summons, you'll get the zero-gravity phase and then just burn him down. Finally, you'll go onto Archimonde from Mt. Hyjal, and here it's just about making sure you have a healer near the tank, as he'll be tossing people around and using fear, so you'll need to run back to him. Make sure to use the extra action button to slow your fall if he knocks you into the air - try to time it so that you use it shortly before you hit the ground, as it only works for a second or so.

Wrath of the Lich King:

The first fight is Heigan the Unclean. You can do the Safety Dance, running through the parts of the floor not spewing slime, or you can just muscle through his damage aura and just try to burn him as quick as you can. Next, there's Anub'arak. The phase you fight him will be when he starts to burrow. Ranged need to kill ice crystals to lay ice on the ground. When he burrows, everyone needs to put some ice between themselves and his spikes. I think it takes five failed spike attacks (trying to go up through the ice) for him to emerge again. Finally, you face the Lich King, starting toward the tail end of phase 2. (This is probably the single boss fight I made the most attempts on, so I know it pretty well even about a decade later.) Stay out of the defile, ranged group up with melee to kill Val'kyr, and when he does Remorseless Winter, get to the edge of the platform and ranged kill the ice balls. When that phase ends, get back before the floor collapses.

Cataclysm:

You start with Cho'gall. Kill adds, face away if you're going to vomit shadow magic onto your raid, and try to tank him at either the throne or the door (I think that might help with the shadow aura?) Next, there's Nefarian. This is shockingly simple - it's just the transition phase. Swim through the lava to the nearest pillar and kill the add on it - they seem to divide the raid evenly so just go to the closest one. The adds have a knockback that needs to be interrupted, but that's about it. When they die and the lava recedes, you can just jump down and you'll be done. Next, there's Ragnaros. Basically, kill adds, stay out of the fire.

Each time you finish all three boss fights, there will be a chest that opens up with some Timewarped Badges as well as, occasionally, some loot for transmog (it's actually a decent item level too - I got some 420 shoulders, which would be great except they don't have Azerite traits.)

The Alterac Valley thing seems to work based on how many Timewarped badges you earn in the battleground. Unfortunately, you need to get 200 and the quests you can do in it (which are the old-school AV quests) only give 10 or even 2 a pop. I wonder if this is intentional or not - it seems like you'll have to really farm this if you want to succeed. The reward is an updated model of the Frostwolf or Stormpike wolf/ram mounts.