The War Within Season 2

In order to (attempt to) prepare our team for the 11.1 patch and the new season I have collected the CliffsNotes™ for what is going away and what is different compared to season one. This post only covers the how when it comes to things like mythic+ gearing, not our guild's expectations, which will be covered elsewhere.

#Link to this headingRelease Schedule

The War Within Patch 11.1: Undermine(d) releases on February 25th, but Season 2 and instanced content is set to release on March 4th.

#Link to this headingWhat's going away?

I won't include things that were naturally obtained by raiding and gearing in Mythic+.

• Cutting Edge: Queen Ansurek is going away, but she will continue to drop two Reins of the Ascendant Skyrazor per kill until the end of the expansion. We'll likely revisit her during periods of insanity.
• Tempered Hero: The War Within Season 1 from being in the top 0.1% of all Mythic+ ratings for the region.
• The Keystone Hero achievements which award the ability to teleport to any dungeon that you've completed at a +10 or higher within the time limit.
• The varied "*-The War Within Season 1" PvP achievements, with ratings locking at 10:00 pm local time (?) the night before the patch.
• Delves have seasonal achievements for doing up to and including a Tier 11 delve, rewarding the "High Explorer" title. The achievement I TAKE CANDLE, and the three achievements for killing Zekvir, Nemesis (rewarding Zekvir's Raptorial Spine), Hunting the Hunter (rewarding the "Ascension Breaker" title), and Let me Solo Him (rewarding the dirigible mount transformation Delver's Dirigible Schematic: Void) will become unobtainble. The only exception being Zekvir's Raptorial Spine, which will be obtainable as a rare drop from Zekvir going forward.
• Plunderstorm will be ending and with it, access to the piratey rewards. It's relatively easy to get 1-2 thousand plunder per round if you only want a few select items.
• The Algari Dungeoneer achievement, which rewards a frigheningly awful transmog set, requires you to do every The War Within dungeon on Mythic as each specialization. You are only able to complete half of the achievement this season via The Dawnbreaker, City of Threads, The Stonevault, and Ara-Kara, City of Threads. In season 2 these dungeons will lose their mythic difficulty until they are back in rotation or the expansion ends.

  If you are actually interested in doing this, credit is counted via whatever specialization you are as you kill the last boss.

#Link to this headingUndermine Zone

The new zone is accesible starting with a quest chain beginning with Renzik "The Shiv" in the Foundation Hall in Dornogol (where the Stormwind and Orgrimmar portals are) on February 25th. Make sure to talk to Rustol when you reach Undermine unlock the ability to teleport between Undermine and Dornogol.

#Link to this headingWhat can I do in Undermine?

Aside from the new Vantus Rune recipe for inscriptionists and the Armor Kit recipe for leatherworkers purchasable at Renown 5, the rest of the zone is only useful for collecting Valorstones and cosmetics.

• You can't fly in the subterranean city of Undermine, so unless you want to walk everywhere you will want to unlock your G-99 Breakneck from the campaign. This mount uses the new D.R.I.V.E. system that has racecar-meets-Mario-Kart mechanics, but is only useable in Undermine. You can use Boost to speed up using the Turbo resource above your car. If you hold down spacebar you will start drifting, allowing you to restore Turbo but only while turning. Running over Kaja'Cola cans also restores some Turbo.

• Embrace the Goblininomenon by farming reputation with the new Undermine factions under The Cartels of Undermine umbrella. The immediate rewards for daily content are still Valorstones and the renown rewards cosmetic. Renown level 5 has some important profession recipes.

  Recipe	Item
  Technique: Contract: The Cartels of Undermine	Contract: The Cartels of Undermine
  Technique: Vantus Rune: Liberation of Undermine	Vantus Rune: Liberation of Undermine
  Schematic: 22H Slicks	22H Slicks
  Pattern: Charged Armor Kit	Charged Armor Kit

• Once the season starts you can kill the world boss, The Gobfather. He drops ilvl 642 Champion 3/8 gear.

• Kill rares for Valorstones or to collect their ilvl 600 warbound gear for alts.

• Visit C.H.E.T.T. on the second floor of the Incontinental Hotel 💩 in Undermine to obtain a C.H.E.T.T. List that you can right-click in your inventory to view a list of 8 weekly tasks. Each task gives 10 Valorstones upon completion and completing 4 turns the item into a Completed C.H.E.T.T. List. You can turn this item in to C.H.E.T.T. for 250 Valorstones or to one of the cartel quartermasters for 500 reputation.

  

• At Renown 3 you can dig for scrap as small events found by their trashcan icons on the map. It gives Valorstones and cosmetic rewards.

#Link to this headingMythic+ Season 2

#Link to this headingDungeon Rotation

The new dungeon rotation includes the remaining four expansion dungeons, Operation: Floodgate, a new dungeon at the Waterworks dam, and three returning dungeons.

• Cinderbrew Meadery
• Darkflame Cleft
• The Rookery
• Priory of the Sacred Flame
• Operation: Floodgate
• The MOTHERLODE!!
• Theater of Pain
• Operation: Mechagon Workshop

#Link to this headingRewards

Blizzard has updated the reward structure in Season 2 to make lower key levels more rewarding with a +6 being the threshold for Hero track end-of-dungeon loot (was +7) with Gilded crests rewarded at +7 and higher (was +8). The maximal reward for both end-of-dungeon and Great Vault is still a +10 with the bonus of giving Hero 3/6 gear at the end of the dungeon (was Hero 2/6).

¹Depleting a keystone gives 4 less than the amount of crests for a timed run, carrying over from the 11.0.7 changes.

#Link to this headingScaling

Dungeons have had their scaling decreased in Season 2.

#Link to this headingAffixes

The Xal'atath's Bargain affixes are returning with the exception of Oblivion, the affix where you had to soak orbs before they reached mobs. It is succeeded by a redesigned orb soaking affix, Pulsar. This new affix has orbs that tether themselves to each player and orbit them for 30 seconds that need to be soaked. Soaking them gives Mastery and Leech, but if not soaked mobs gain +10% damage and 20% damage reduction per orb.

Blizzard has also redesigned the level 12 affix, Xal'atath's Guile, to be what Challenger's Peril was — removing 15 seconds from the timer per death while also still rescinding the bargains.

#Link to this headingSeasonal Rewards

There are two new seasonal rewards for Season 2, the first being The War Within Keystone Legend: Season Two for achieving a Mythic+ Rating of 3000 which rewards the Enterprising Shreddertank mount.

The other new achievement being The War Within Season 2: Resilient Keystone 12. For timing all dungeons at a 12 the player will no longer have their keystone deplete below a 12. There are further achievements for levels 13, 14, ...etc with Wowhead showing this goes up to at least 25.

In addition to the standard seasonal Mythic+ achievements below and the Keystone Hero achievements that reward teleports to dungeons, reaching Keystone Master (Mythic+ Rating of 2000+) is one way to earn the important The War Within Season 2: Master Blaster seasonal meta achievement for a free tier piece of your choice. Reaching Keystone Hero (Mythic+ Rating of 2500+) rewards the final seasonal meta achievement Dressed to the Mines, providing an item that enhances the visuals of your tierset.

• The War Within Keystone Explorer: Season Two
• The War Within Keystone Conqueror: Season Two, which rewards "<Name> the Enterprising" title.
• The War Within Keystone Master: Season Two which rewards the Crimson Shreddertank mount.
• The War Within Keystone Hero: Season Two
• Enterprising Hero: The War Within Season Two, the new 0.1% title, "<Name> the Enterprising Hero".