WoW: Dragonflight – Everything New in Patch 10.1

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Human Made

Penned by Sarah Arnold

Sarah loves RPGs, sandboxes, and sims. She's played every expansion of World of Warcraft and WoW Classic and spent hundreds of hours modding and playing Bethesda games.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Hsu

Patch 10.1 of WoW: Dragonflight has been released, and now you can experience all the content that Embers of Neltharion has to offer! This is the largest patch on Blizzard’s roadmap for the Dragonflight expansion, with something new added for just about every area of the game.

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All New Features in Dragonflight 10.1 (Season 2)

Let’s take a look at everything that’s in the patch, including the content that is releasing on May 9th with Season 2 of Dragonflight.

New Zone: Zaralek Cavern

The main campaign questline of Dragonflight continues in patch 10.1, and it carries us into a new underground zone, Zaralek Cavern, which is the first zone in World of Warcraft to be located directly underneath another zone.

The zone features narrow tunnels that connect it to the Dragon Isles above it, which will make it interesting to travel through on dragon back. Zaralek Cavern comes with new pets and rares as well as new world events, including a snail racing mini-game.

New Faction: Niffen

There’s a new faction to establish reputation with in patch 10.1 of Dragonflight. The Loamm Niffen are a race of mole people who are native to Zaralek Cavern, and you’ll need their help to find your way around.

They come with their own Renown track, which offers some unique rewards, including Flightstones for the new gear upgrade system. You can gain reputation with them by completing quests in Zaralek Cavern, including world quests and events.

New Public Events

Along with some new events for Zaralek Cavern, there are also new events for the other zones in the Dragon Isles.

Fyrakk Assaults can be found in The Azure Span and Ohn’ahran Plains, and two new world bosses have also appeared: Gholna and Vakan. These events reward Shadowflame Crests, which are used in the new gear upgrade system.

To unlock these events, you will need to complete some new quests as part of the main Dragonflight campaign. Most of these events will be made available on May 9th when Dragonflight Season 2 begins, but you can begin unlocking them right away.

New Dragonriding Content

Along with the new zone comes all new dragonriding content, including eight new glyphs to be found in Zaralek Cavern.

These can be used to unlock two new traits in the dragonriding skill tree. Ground Skimming is a new trait that grants vigor when flying near the ground, and Land’s Blessing improves its effect.

There are also new dragonriding manuscripts to discover as well as a new mount, the Winding Slitherdrake, which can be earned by completing the main story quests in Zaralek Cavern.

New Gear Upgrade System

Dragonflight patch 10.1 also brings a new system for upgrading your gear. You can improve gear obtained through any Dragonflight content, including raids, dungeons, and the open world. Doing so requires Flightstones and Shadowflame Crests, which are also obtained from all kinds of Dragonflight content.

A single item can be improved up to eight times, increasing its item level and stats. Once you have obtained an item of a certain item level, future upgrades to that item level for pieces in the same slot will require fewer materials, making it easy to swap in new pieces of gear.

Cross-Faction Guilds

Blizzard has been gradually opening up the ability to play with friends of the opposite faction, and with Dragonflight patch 10.1 comes the natural next step in this process: cross-faction guilds.

Guilds will remain affiliated with the faction of their guild leader for the purposes of achievements and vendors, but opposite-faction members will still be able to join the guild and use the guild chat channels, guild bank, and guild repairs.

To invite someone from the opposite faction to your guild, you will need to either be Battle.net friends or members of the same Battle.net community. They will also have to be on the same realm. Although you will be able to join instanced content together, opposite faction characters are still considered hostile in the open world.

New Character Customization Options

A few new character customization options have been added in Dragonflight patch 10.1. Nightborne have received four new eye colors and five new hair colors. Dark Iron Dwarves have four new skin tones and four new hair color options. Blizzard has also separated blind eye options from eye color, so you can select those separately now for every race. Head to the barber shop to try them all out!

Worgen characters have been given a new racial ability in patch 10.1: Calm the Wolf. This is similar to the Dracthyr’s Chosen Identity racial, which you can toggle to automatically switch to human form when out of combat.

Finally, the exalted reputation requirements have been dropped from heritage armor quests. Now all you need to do is level a character of that race to level 50 and you can complete the quest line and receive your heritage armor.

Loot Changes

There are several quality of life changes to loot in WoW with this patch. First, the timer before loot becomes bound has been increased from two hours to four, giving you a longer window to trade. Additionally, dungeon and raid bosses will remain lootable for two hours after they are killed, giving you a lot more time to go back and retrieve any forgotten loot before they disappear.

A completely new feature in patch 10.1 is the Transmogrification option in the loot roll window. This option appears when you have not yet collected an item’s appearance, and it takes priority over the Greed option. So for all you obsessive collectors out there – enjoy!

Profession Updates

Patch 10.1 brings a host of updates to Dragonflight professions, including new recipes for endgame gear as well as for fun and cosmetic items. There are new crafting materials to be found in Zaralek Cavern as well as craftable items to be used in the new gear upgrade system. Several existing crafted items have also received buffs to make them more worthwhile.

User Interface Updates

Blizzard continues to tweak their new user interface system in patch 10.1, with lots of minor fixes and adjustments. A lot of UI elements have received new and improved art, animation, and effects, including new high-resolution class resource bars for holy power, soul shards, and more.

Talent builds can also be more easily shared with other players, and the Graphics Quality section of the options menu has been reorganized into tabs.

Class Changes and New Tier Sets

There are many class changes included in Dragonflight patch 10.1, with major revamps for the following specializations:

• Balance Druid
• Feral Druid
• Shadow Priest
• Mistweaver Monk
• Enhancement Shaman
• Devastation Evoker

But the broadest change is to healing. The value of the Leech stat has been reduced by 25%, and player stamina and enemy damage have been increased by 25%. This change is intended to keep healers feeling relevant, with lots of adjustments to healing spells to compensate.

With the start of Dragonflight Season 2 on May 9th, we’ll see a new set of tier gear for every class. In many cases these sets have bonuses that change the way certain abilities work. The first time you kill the last boss of the new raid on any difficulty, you’ll get a guaranteed tier piece. You’ll get another guaranteed piece for completing the Season 2 Master achievement (clear the raid on heroic, or earn a high Mythic+ or PVP rating).

Season 2 for PVP and Mythic+

Dragonflight Season 2 will begin on May 9th, and brings with it new PVP titles and cosmetic rewards. It also brings a host of changes to Mythic+ dungeons, including new affixes and a new dungeon rotation.

The new affixes are Incorporeal, Afflicted, and Entangling. To make room, three affixes are being retired: Quaking, Grievous, and Explosive. The levels at which affixes will appear have also been adjusted, with the first affix still appearing at level 2, but the second moving from level 4 to level 7, and the third moving up from level 7 to level 14. There is no seasonal affix for Season 2.

The new Mythic+ dungeon rotation includes four Dragonflight dungeons:

• Halls of Infusion
• Brackenhide Hollow
• Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
• Neltharus.

Four dungeons from previous expansions are also making a return:

• Freehold
• The Underrot
• Neltharion’s Lair
• Vortex Pinnacle.

New Raid: Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible

Also releasing on May 9th is a new raid: Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible. This secret laboratory of Neltharion is located deep within Zaralek Cavern and houses nine bosses. It comes with a new set of achievements with new rewards, including a mount and a title.

The entire raid will be available for normal, heroic, and mythic difficulties on May 9th, along with the first wing in Raid Finder. A new wing will be available in Raid Finder every two weeks, with four wings in total.

Join the High Ground!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this guide has helped you navigate everything that’s in patch 10.1 of WoW: Dragonflight. If you have any questions, leave a comment below, and be sure to subscribe to High Ground for more useful guides!

Happy gaming!