World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is well on the way, and there’s a great amount of content coming out about it every day. Recently, Blizzard confirmed three new Covenant abilities to be used with the upcoming Covenant factions being added with the expansion. Additionally, we’ve discovered a new change to flying mounts as well.
Beginning with the flying mounts, it seems that Blizzard has decided to remove the Artisan training for mounts. This training previously allowed you to use flying mounts at 280% speed, sitting as a halfway point between the 100% flying speed of Expert and 310% flying speed of Master.
Training in Artisan costs 5,000 gold, so it’s not a cheap thing to grab, but having it is a requirement to unlocking the Master flying speed. Blizzard removing this tier is a great way to reduce the large number of mount training tiers and safe players some cash, helping streamline leveling without sacrificing any important gameplay elements.
The three new Covenant abilities being added in are as follows:
Soul Rot is a Warlock-specific ability from the Night Fae Covenant. Soul Rot causes up to four targets to suffer a large amount of Nature damage over 8 seconds, also simultaneously casting Drain Life to heal the Warlock. The Drain Life seems especially important, as Soul Rot consumes 20% of a Warlock’s maximum health when cast.
Blizzard also confirmed Primordial Wave for the Shaman class, a Covenant ability given by the Necrolords. Primordial Wave is heavily affected by the specialization of the Shaman casting it. Restoration Shamans will heal an ally heavily based on their own Spell and Attack power, as well as applying Riptide. It will also cause a subsequent spec-specific ability to hit all targets affected by Flame Shock or Riptide. Enhancement and Elemental Shamans can use the ability offensively, dealing the same amount of damage instead of healing.
The third ability is a Monk-specific Necrolord ability titled Bonedust Brew. Monks can throw a cask of Bonedust Brew onto targets both friendly or hostile, allowing their abilities to have a 15% chance to affect the target a second time at 25% effectiveness as Shadow damage or healing. Additionally, each specialization has the following additional effects:
- Mistweaver: Gust of Mists heals targets with your Bonedust Brew active for an additional (33.75% of Attack Power).
- Brewmaster: Tiger Palm and Keg Smash reduces the cooldown of your brews by an additional 1 second when striking enemies with your Bonedust Brew active.
- Windwalker: Spinning Crane Kick refunds 1 Chi when striking enemies with your Bonedust Brew active.
And those are the three new abilities! There will likely be a great amount of information coming out in the following days, so keep your eyes peeled for more information on Shadowlands!