World of Warcraft: The War Within pre-patch guide

There’s a new expansion in a month, and a new major patch just released to prepare for it. Whether you’re returning to Azeroth for the first time in a while, or are a regular player who wants a refresher on all the latest happenings, this guide’s for you.

How does Skyriding Work?

When Dragonflight launched, one of its biggest features was known as Dragonriding. It was a new, dynamic form of flight than previous forms of mount flying. However, it was restricted to specific Dragonriding mounts that were introduced throughout the expansion. Now, it’s been renamed as Skyriding, and is available for (almost!) all of your flying mounts.

However, if you need the old “steady” style of flying for any reason, you can change it by going into your Mount screen and clicking on Skyriding at the top. It’ll give you a drop down to change it, as well as the ability to look at your unlocked skills. Make sure you go in there to select optional talents when you can.

How do Warbands work?

Warbands might be one of the most heavily appreciated updates to character progression since the implementation of collections. This feature allows you to share unlocks, renown, achievements, collections, and even a special bank between all of your characters, across your entire Battle.net account. The only limitation to this is if you have accounts in multiple regions (like US and EU).

When you log into WoW for the first time, it might take a few minutes as the system compiles all of your character data for the new system. Once that’s done, you won’t need to log into every character; everything will already be done and waiting for you.

As soon as you log in, you’ll notice the first change from the Warband. Your list of characters will feature a spot for four favorites at the top, who then all display together at a new campsite screen. It’s a great way to have all of your characters across all realms, so long as they’re part of the same account. Apparently, there’s even plans to add more backgrounds later, adding more fun customization options for your character screen.

Warband reputation

Reputations now belong to your Warband, not just individual characters. Any reputation you gain on one character is added to the whole total now. That also means that rewards will be available to all of them, though keep in mind that some rewards are character specific. For the process of logging in, whichever of your characters has the highest renown will become the total renown for your entire warband. Also, older content reputations might not be immediately converted, but will be over time.

Some smaller reputations will not become warbound, however. The Winterpelt Furbolg, to use a recent example, will still be character-specific. Older specific reputations, like Covenants in Shadowlands, will not be Warband wide either.

Warband achievements and quest rewards

Now that warbands are implemented, all achievements are pooled together for one total score. Effectively, all of them are now account wide. Some achievements will remain attached to specific characters, such as “Insane in the Membrane.” Other achievements that do not benefit from shared progressions, like “Memories of Teldrassil,” will also remain applied on a character-level. These kinds of achievements can be found under the Legacy category.

While quests aren’t completed across all characters, there are bonuses depending on how many times you’ve completed a quest. The first time will grant you reputation to the appropriate faction as a bonus. Any characters that complete that same quest afterwards will receive a currency bonus, similar to Dragon Isles Supplies in the current expansion.

While your currencies aren’t all dumped into one big Warband bag, they are easily transferrable between your characters. So you can send Dragon Isles supplies to another character so they can pick up whatever item it is you’re looking for. This is all done from the currency tab.

Warband gear and collections

Gear will now feature a new type called “Warbound until Equipped” (WuE). Similar to Account Bound items, this gear can be sent to any of your characters in your Warband. This also leads into enhancing your Transmog collection!

Any character can now collect any item appearance, regardless of the ability to equip it personally. Getting a two-handed sword in your transmog runs with a Priest will now grant that appearance to your account, regardless of the fact that Priests can’t equip it. Note that the ability to equip an item still affects whether your character can use it for transmog.

Because of this, it’s also easier to have appearances added to your collection, as you no longer need to manually equip the item. Any time an item is destroyed or sold, you will automatically collect the appearance anyway. The only exception to all of this is class-specific gear, which still requires that class to collect it. If you’re not sure if you have an item, your appearance tab and sets tab now have a dropdown to select a different class to view what you have.

How do I unlock Warband Banks?

Warband Banks are a convenient new bank that works similar to a guild bank, but is intended for all of your own characters. You will receive up to 5 tabs with 98 slots each for all of your characters to access. Any item that is not soulbound can be added to it, including reagent items and gold.

To unlock this feature, you’ll need to complete a storyline called Warbanding Together, starting in Gadgetzan. Once you finish, you’ll obtain the Warband Bank Distance Inhibitor spell that allows you to summon a personal portal to your Warband Bank. This is similar in function to the Mobile Guild Bank spell.

To start the quest, you’ll need to go to Gadgetzan in Kalimdor. Speak to the character Blue and follow a short series of quests. You’ll venture south to beat up on some teleportation ghosts and close rifts. Note: Beating up on the teleportation ghosts is to collect a rift essence that might not drop a lot right away. Just keep knocking them down, you’ll start collecting it eventually.

Once you’ve turned in those quests, you’ll have to venture a little further southwest to activate a device. It’ll summon some unfortunate enemies, but they shouldn’t be a problem. Turn that in, and your last task is to go to the Gadgetzan Auction house to set up one final device. Once that’s done, you’ll learn the spell to summon your Warband Bank. You’ll also be able to find this on a new tab whenever you visit a banker in game. As a note: right now the Warband Bank is actually disabled due to an issue, but that should be resolved soon.

What is the Radiant Echoes pre-expansion event?

We’ll cover this more in a separate guide, as it does not start until July 30.

What are some other changes for the pre-patch?

There are a few more things that might be good to know, but that don’t require guides.

• Dragonflight is now the default leveling experience for new characters leveling from 10-70.
• Guilds can now have members from across different realms. A Cross-Realm Guild Bank will be added soon.
• Humans have a new Racial to replace the Rep Gain one. Their hearthstone cooldown is now reduced by 5 minutes and gains an extra charge.
• Several new Map and Quest icons have been updated to help identify what types of quests are being used. Most map icons can now be left-clicked to track.
• Spellbooks have received a much-needed redesign, featuring a search option and sorting.
• Arachnaphobia Mode lets you replace spiders with crabs.
• Camera collision has been severely reduced.
• Classes have each received several adjustments for the new expansion. You can read about specific changes here.