Catch up on the latest World of Warcraft news from the last week in This Week in WoW! 

The War Within™ Pre-Expansion Content Update Goes Live 24 July

Big changes arrive with the introduction of Warbands, Skyriding, class and system updates, and more with the pre-expansion content update.

Take part in a new event, Radiant Echoes, and begin your first steps into the continuing story that will take you into the unexplored depths of Azeroth. The War Within goes live on 26 August at 23:00 BST globally. Players who have purchased the Epic Edition of The War Within will take part in Early Access beginning 22 August.

Visions of Azeroth

Strange visions are calling to the heroes of Azeroth. Players who have reached level 70 and have completed the final chapter of the Dragonflight questline will be called to take their next steps into the story leading into The War Within with the first part of the "Visions of Azeroth" questline.

Take to the Skies with Skyriding

Dragonriding is here to stay and available for many flying mounts in all flyable areas. Players can also toggle between Skyriding (previously known as dynamic flight) or the flying style introduced originally in The Burning Crusade (TBC), which we’re calling Steady Flight. Learn more about Skyriding in our previously published article.

To learn more about what is coming with The War Within Pre-Expansion content update, read through our previously published article.

Season of Discovery Phase 4 Now Live!

Level to 60, discover new class runes, enter the Molten Core raid dungeon to face Ragnaros, and more in the latest phase.

New World Event: Blackrock Eruption

The raw power of Ragnaros’ summoning is causing an upheaval in Blackrock Mountain. Players can experience more of the story behind this upheaval and take part in the recurring event and the associated quests while this event is active.

This timed event occurs every 2 hours with additional creature spawns, daily quests, and bonus honor rewards from PvP within Blackrock Mountain.

Increase your reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood and earn access to valuable crafting materials and other rewards.

Raid Boss Schedule

World Bosses

Experience Lord Kazzak and Azuregos on July 18 at 1:00 p.m. PDT globally as brand-new instanced versions of these encounters. These encounters can be experienced with up to 40 players but will be tuned as 20-player content, making them both pick-up-group-friendly with 40 players, but also giving players the option to maximize their rewards by attempting them with 20-players.

Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair Raid Dungeons

Prepare to take on Ragnaros and Onyxia in their lairs on July 25 at 1:00 p.m. PDT globally.

Experience Molten core as a 20-player dungeon with 10 classic bosses (+1,) revamped loot, redesigned Tier 1 sets, and more. Players will also be able to turn up the heat with a new variable difficulty mechanic allowing players to earn more rewards from undertaking a higher difficulty. Don’t forget your fire resist gear! You are going to need it. We’ll be adding one more surprise to this classic raid dungeon for intrepid adventurers to discover.

Onyxia will also be adjusted to accommodate 40 or fewer players along with some additional loot adjustments.

New Raid Lockout interval

Raid lockouts for all raids in Season of Discovery Phase 4 will now occur two times a week on static reset days. Players in North America will have their resets on Tuesdays and Saturdays, Europe on Wednesdays and Sundays, and players in Asia on Thursdays and Mondays.

Get the Band Together for Warbands

Expand the potential of all your World of Warcraft® characters with account-wide progression across your Battle.net® account, regardless of faction—including shared Renown, a Warband bank, Achievements, Collections, and more!

With the arricla of The War Within, upon first logging into World of Warcraft, the Warband conversion process automatically enables many of the game's progression systems to be account-wide. Players will not need to log into each character individually for all progression, items, etc., to convert; however, there may be a short wait for the system to completely process your Warband the first time you log in. The Warband conversion process can take up to 20 minutes or longer, and depending on the amount of data being processed, there could be a login queue.

The new Warbands system is effective for all characters on a player's Battle.net account and the items, Collections, and progression they share. It's important to note that your Warband is limited to characters within a single region (for example, the Americas or Europe) but spans every realm, faction, and even subscription you may have within that region.

Learn more about Warbands in our overview article.

The War Within: Radiant Echoes Event Overview

Confront the memories of Azeroth during the new pre-expansion event and collect Residual Memories to purchase new items to add to your Warband collection.

When: 31 July – 27 August
Where: Dalaran (hub), Dragonblight, Dustwallow Marsh, and Searing Gorge
Currency: Residual Memories – Half-forgotten memories can be glimpsed in the light playing across this iridescent powder.
Levels: 10-70

Players with and without The War Within™ will be able to take part in this event for its duration. Learn more about this event in our overview article.

Have a Hoot with Owlsome Friends

Expand your collection of mounts and pets with some owlsome friends—the Charming Courier Mount and the Swoopy owl pet—in the skies and on the ground. Your adventures will owlways be a hoot.

Add the Charming Courier owl mount (with Skyriding!) to your multitude of mounts, spread your wings, and swiftly swoop into the skies! Purchase a 6-Month Subscription and get the Charming Courier mount for Modern, along with the Swoopy owl pet to journey with your Cataclysm Classic™ characters. The mount and pet are also available for separate purchase through the Battle.net Shop.

Players on existing 6-Month or 12-Month recurring subscription plans with a future renewal date will receive the Charming Courier mount and the Swoopy pet at no additional charge, no later than 23 July, 2024 (must be redeemed by 31 January, 2025) through the Battle.net launcher.

Subscribe Today

Paid Character Transfer Service Update Ahead

With the launch of The War Within™ pre-expansion content update arriving on 24 July, we will be disabling the Paid Character Transfer (PCT) service for transfers between Battle.net® accounts.

This service will still be available to use between realms and between World of Warcraft® accounts within a single Battle.net account. Please be aware that transfers between Battle.net accounts will not be available after the pre-expansion update has gone live. Any transfer tokens that you have saved to use on a transfer between Battle.net accounts should be used before this time.

Follow along on the official World of Warcraft news site for all the latest developments as we journey through the week together.