The intermediary content update is now available for players across all regions – while the «X.5» patches are commonly known to have a minor role and to fill the gaps between the significant patches with new zones, raids, and power scaling, the «Fractures in Time» actually offers quite many things to explore, as well as some most exciting rewards. I’ve barely begun my way through the story and the update’s content, and the to-do list fills up quickly! Let’s go through it together, shall we?

1. Participate in the Time Rifts Event

The Time Rifts are outdoor public events that appear once every hour – jump into the opened rift and complete the scenario where you have to fight off the invaders from the alternate timelines where some crucial events took a sinister turn compared to our universe, like the one where the Lich King won and the Azeroth swarms with the Undead Scourge.

Completing the Rifts rewards you with the Paracausal Currency, which you can spend on various timeline-themed cosmetics and collectibles, such as Scourge Victorious Tabard or Perfected Juggernaut mount. If you loot the Time Capsule Token, it can be traded for 402-424 upgradable gear, making it a great addition to catch up on your alt characters!

Quick Tip: Veteran gear obtained in the time rifts can be converted into the LFR tier pieces using the Revival Catalyst! Use it to get the set bonus or collect the LFR transmog appearances.

2. Beat the Mega-Dungeon

The Dawn of the Infinite is a Mythic difficulty dungeon consisting of 8 bosses. It drives the main storyline of the expansion and revolves around the uncertain future of the Bronze Dragon Aspect Nozdormu. What’s most innovative is the relative complexity of mechanics that makes the fights much more similar to raid encounters rather than the common dungeon ones. That is an excellent direction to explore and make the dungeons more interactive, with difficulty scaling not solely by increasing health and damage numbers but with the proper execution of mechanics and tactics instead. Essentially, the Dawn of the Infinite is a 5 Man Raid. The overall tuning is done around 435 item level in mind, but even groups with lower average gear manage to complete the dungeon, though the progress is more complicated. I suggest you check a few 1-Minute Video Guides on YouTube before you start and get helpful insight into the encounters!

Rewards

Loot is my second favorite part about the Dawn – not only does it drop the base 437 item level gear, which you can later upgrade to 441, but the bosses also drop some unique trinkets, like the Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows, which is essentially the rebranded BiS Algeth’ar Puzzle Box trinket from Season 1, but rid of the annoying cast time. There are even more notable items in the dungeon loot pool, including:

•  Mythic Divergent Weapons – alternate versions of well-known weapons with additional stats and effects; 

• Unique Quantum Items have guaranteed drop from the final boss of the dungeon. Using a piece of Quantim Gear will turn it into a random transmog of the same item slot missing from your collection. For example, the Quantum Greatsword will give a random appearance of the Two-Handed sword from the past. It can be a grey item, a blue one, or even a Corrupted Ashbringer..? Who knows, we’ll have to wait for more people to find these items and use them to understand the limitations of what you can get. 
• And with the lowest drop chances, there are Reins of the Quantum Courser – a mystery item that will turn into a random dungeon mount you don’t have in your collection, including the rare Feat of Strength worthy mounts, such as Deathcharger’s Reins or Raven Lord. 

• As for the Dragonriding mounts, the Infinite Dragon customizations also have a guaranteed drop from the last boss.

Hard Mode 

The dungeon Hard Mode implies the Immortal type of completion, where you must finish the run without any deaths in the group and complete an additional task – players must find four artifacts across the map, take them all the way to the final encounter, and deposit them into the opening time rifts during the fight. After that, you can finish the boss and get the «Put That Thing Back Where It Came From» achievement and the Infinite-Themed Armor transmogrification set.

A successful Hard Mode run increases the baseline of the items dropped from the Final Boss to  441 ⅓ Myth, meaning you can upgrade them to level 447.

Players who complete this complex dungeon before the launch of Season 3 will get an achievement similar to the Ahead of the Curve from the raids: Defender of the Timeways and «of the Infinite» title.

3. Try the New Class And Character Updates

While some classes and specs have received all the usual buff/nerf balance treatments, others, like Holy Paladins and Mages, have undergone noticeable reworks, including the new talents and returning abilities.

You can find more detailed changes in the Developers article.

Allied Races Unlock

If you wanted to make an allied race character, but the achievement requirements or questlines held you back, you can log in right now and create one – the remaining condition is to have a level 40+ on your account.

Warlock Customizations

• New Race/Class combos are available. Feel free to train your Night Elf, Tauren, Draenei, Pandaren, and other races in the arts of dark magic!
• After completing the new quest line, warlock players can visit the barber and customize their demons! 

4. New Support Spec – Augmentation Evoker  

Augmentation Evoker is a new spec that introduces a new role for the World of Warcraft. It is the first support specialization that buffs allies and dramatically improves their dps and capabilities. However, the launch of the new spec met controversy due to specific technical reasons and misunderstandings from the community.

First, the spec design implies that Augmentation’s primary focus is empowering allies instead of personal DPS, a new concept for WoW players. Second, for some reason, developers decided that in-game damage meters won’t be able to differentiate the damage done with the Evoker Buffs and players’ raw damage, resulting in the HUGE difference of numbers visible in the game and adequately calculated logs, as visible on the screenshot. That decision makes it confusing for both Evokers and other classes – how can you see the impact as the support unless you check the logs? What is your actual performance without the buffs? And the idea of logging all types of content is way too alienating even for experienced players, let alone the more casual audience. Everyone agrees that the number representation has to change.

Despite that, as we can see by analyzing the logs and by the gameplay, the spec is fun to play. It has a significant impact, so try it and maybe even master it so that when the developers bring on some necessary changes, no one will accuse you of «Lower than tank DPS» without even understanding the situation.

5. Push The Limits with New Upgrade Levels

All the rewards from the Weekly Vaults for the M+16 and higher with the baseline of 441 item level, as well as Very Rare raid drops on Heroic difficulty, and Mythic raid items can be upgraded to the max level of 447. Completing weekly keystones has even more value with this update!

6. Return To Old Scholomance and Naxxramas

There are many secrets to uncover about the content of the old world; learn the ability to craft previously unobtainable cosmetic sets, including the famous and sought-after Tier 3 sets.

Crafting Tier 3 Gear

I hate to break it to you, but getting Tier 3 will be more challenging than many had hoped when the first datamines came through. It is calculated that the set will require around 3 to 5 million of gold in raw materials to craft the gear, AND a person with already acquired Tier 3 on top of it because only a person with the complete set achievement can obtain and use the recipe. While some players argue that crafting can be cheaper than trying to snipe the pieces on the Black Market, others are simply disappointed that your ability to get the set lies in other players’ hands, which is a recipe for skyrocketing prices and crafting exclusivity.

If the cost is of no concern to you, congrats – in this update, you’ll get the coveted tier set appearance!

Obtain the mount of the Horseman!

Valiance faithfully served one of the Horsemen in undeath, but now the time has come to introduce the new master. The community has already solved the secret and learned how to tame the horse –get ready for an adventure inside the 10-man Naxxramas raid!

Collect the Sapphiron’s Bane Frost Resist Set

The legendary frost resistance set is back! Once you unlock the secrets of Naxx and uncover the secret entrance, you must search the raid for the 32 Pages of Omarion’s Notes and rediscover previously lost armor patterns.

7. Take Advantage of the Quality of Life Features

Various relatively minor updates can change players’ experience in the best way!

• Two free slots in the bags as the Dalaran and Garrison Hearthstones moved to the Toys Tab;
• Skip to Garrosh has been added to the Siege of Orgrimmar – farm the Tusks more efficiently;
• Solo queue to Shadowlands LFR from Oribos to collect transmog;
• Improved UI visuals and effects;
• Players will auto-learn Riding Skills and get a free Flying Mount.

Auction with Companion App

The mobile app has been updated, with the option to buy and sell on the auction house and mark items as favorites. Keep on trading and making gold even while you are away!

Cross-Realm Trading

While the feature is disabled at the time of writing, once the developers figure out the bug affecting realm performance, this will open a new era of WoW economy where players can freely trade items and gold to characters across all servers on the same region.

Update Your Character

If your character has been collecting dust for a while, you’ll see an option to get him up to speed with the set of gear for his current level and chosen spec, clean quest log, and teleported right where they should be to begin their adventure anew.

8. Expand the Dragonriding Horizons

The first-ever Kalimdor Cup of the Dragonriding Races will be held for two weeks, starting August 15th. It seems that Blizzard tests the waters for the future implementation of Dragonriding into the Old World, beginning with these time-limited events for different continents. Get ready to race against time and collect new achievements!

9. Collect 11 New Pets from the Whelp Daycare

If you’re into the Pet Battles or simply love collecting cute little thingies, plenty of rewards await you in Valdrakken – make your way through the questline, take care of the little Whelpings, and after 16 days of patience and dedicated work, you will gather all the pets and achievement.

10. New Daily Quests Hub 

The Eon’s Fringe becomes a new hub for the players to complete daily quests and new questlines to unlock various transmog options, pets, and other rewards. The dailies will take players on a journey across time and space, where we will visit certain events of the past, meet iconic characters like Arthas, Jaina, and Illidan, and ensure the correct flow of time.

First Impressions

While developers took some wrong terms on certain decisions, my general impression of the patch is that it’s successful in many ways. The main content activities are fun and engaging, and the rewards are good and desirable. The fact is, I don’t even have the time to participate in all the activities I want to, so I have to delegate a few tasks on the outsourcing. If you’re ever in a situation like mine and considering the same option – make sure to weigh the options and choose a trustworthy service provider, like Kingboost, so you can verify reviews and see if that works for you.