Warlords of Draenor

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor is the fifth expansion set to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following Mists of Pandaria. It was announced on November 8, 2013 at BlizzCon 2013. The expansion was released on November 13, 2014

The expansion raised the existing level cap from 90 to 100 and introduced player-built, upgradeable garrisons.Most of the player models were updated to have more detailed textures, animations and facial expressions, thus increasing the system requirements of the game.

Gameplay

Main article: Gameplay of World of Warcraft

The expansion allows players to level up to 100, an increase from the cap of 90 in the previous expansion Mists of Pandaria. It initially included eight 5-man dungeons and one raid, Highmaul, that opened in early December 2014.There was also a rebalancing of raid difficulty by the addition of a new difficulty called Mythic, which became the hardest version of the raid system that requires exactly 20 players. The easiest is 25-player raid finder (or "Looking For Raid"), and flexible raiding was expanded to include normal and heroic difficulty, allowing groups to range from 10 to 30 players, with the enemies scaling dynamically depending on the raid size.Players are able to build and upgrade their own garrison, a personal area in which they can recruit non-player characters (NPC) to carry out missions to earn the player or NPC experience and items. The garrison is assembled from the individual buildings like stables or armories, increasing their size and modifying their appearance.The Blackrock Foundry raid was opened in February 2015. The 6.2 patch in June 2015 introduced the third and final raid of the expansion, Hellfire Citadel.

The development team made a number of changes to the player versus player (PvP) aspects of the game. They altered the way that PvP items behave when players fight, reducing crowd control abilities, and added a new PvP-focused island area called Ashran containing various objectives and battles for players to participate in.

The proving grounds were updated for Warlords of Draenor. In order to queue in random matchmaking for a heroic dungeon, a silver medal from the proving grounds is required for the desired role. However, if a full premade group is used instead of matchmaking, the medal requirement does not apply.Challenge modes and the pet battle system were also updated to work within the new content.

The player stats of hit, expertise, dodge, and parry were removed from new items and new tertiary stats were added to give additional movement speed, reduction in area of effect damage taken, indestructible (item does not need to be repaired) or leech (converts a portion of damage and healing into self healing).

Some item drops can randomly be upgraded. For example, quest rewards have a chance of being upgraded to rare or epic quality. Raid loot and heroic/mythic dungeon loot has chance to randomly gain tertiary stats, a bonus socket and/or an additional item level upgrade called "warforged", and baleful gear can proc "empowered" to gain additional item levels from 5 to 45, up from the 650 base item.

Plot

The expansion is set after the events of Mists of Pandaria and takes place in an alternate universe on the world of Draenor, the original homeworld of the orcs as it appeared in Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, prior to its destruction in the ending of that game and the creation of Outland as featured in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Legendary characters of Warcraft's past, such as Grommash Hellscream, Ner'zhul, Gul'dan, and Blackhand appear.

At the end of Mists of Pandaria, Garrosh Hellscream is overthrown as Warchief of the Horde by a combined Alliance–Horde force and taken into custody by the Pandaren so that he can stand trial for the atrocities he committed in Pandaria. However, before he can be judged, Garrosh escapes captivity with the aid of Kairozdormu (a renegade bronze dragon) and travels to the orcish homeworld of Draenor 35 years in the past, prior to the rise of the Horde. As soon as they arrive Garrosh kills Kairoz then proceeds to change history by preventing his father Grommash from drinking the blood of the demon lord Mannoroth, which led to the orc's corruption by the Burning Legion and played a major role in the events of the first three Warcraft games. This interferes with history, creating an alternate timeline where the orcish clans unite into an "Iron Horde" by using technology Garrosh brought from his time. The Iron Horde begin a war of conquest on Draenor by killing Mannoroth and building a Dark Portal that allows them to travel through time and lay siege to the Azeroth of the present era.[14] The adventurers storm the Dark Portal and with the help of Khadgar fight back the Iron Horde Vanguard back into the alternate Draenor. The adventurers use the Iron Horde's own weaponry to destroy the Draenor side of the Dark Portal but are subsequently forced to flee in order to evade the full might of the Iron Horde. The Azeroth Vanguard flee to the docks and split into two ships; with the Alliance following the Draenei and the Horde joining the Frostwolf Clan. Afterwards, the Alliance and Horde establish bases with portals to Azeroth to bring in supplies and soldiers.

In the Hellfire Citadel raid, the adventurers slay Kilrogg and remnants of the Iron Horde. When confronted, Gul'dan resurrects Mannoroth only for the adventurers to kill him and free Grommash, who actually joins them. Gul'dan then summons Archimonde to invade Draneor and, with Yrel and Grommash's help, the adventurers kill him too. At the end of the battle, Archimonde in his final moment flings Gul'dan through a portal to Azeroth of the main timeline in order to fulfill his pact with the Legion, setting the stage for the next expansion.