The Forbidden Reach
- Rewards aside, the Forbidden Reach is full of rares, treasures, and things to engage in. The Zskera Vaults is kind of a throwback to activities like the Isle of Thunder treasure room, and they’ve tried to add cool unique gameplay that everyone can enjoy regardless of their progression.
- If you don’t need the gear for power, there are still cosmetics to collect, but at the very least Ion believes that everyone will enjoy checking out the new content.
Activities and Rewards
- In terms of progression, if you’re completely done – finished Mythic Raszageth or Keystone Hero, you probably won’t find much in the way of item upgrades, but that’s fine. For others, there’s a range of rewards to help players still working on lower difficulty raids or other content.
- The Onyx Annulet ring from the Zskera Vaults, and the primordial gemstones socketed inside it, is intended to be useful for competitively minded players, though it should be replaced early in Season 2.
- The Zserka Vaults are pretty big, but do have an effective cap in that it has a finite number of doors to open. Once those chambers have been opened and plundered, they remain that way until the weekly reset, so any more keys you get beyond that can be sent to alts or saved for future use.
- After opening up the vendor, you can actually get a second Onyx Annulet in order to setup multiple gem loadouts without having to continually swap them out.
Engaging Alts and Catch-Up Gear
- The Forbidden Reach will also feature Bind-on-Account gear tokens starting at 385 and upgradable to 395. They can also be converted to tier using the Catalyst, and like tokens of the past, they can be sent to alts.
- The rares have a lot of highly telegraphed rares, the evolution of a growing intent make outdoor gameplay meaningful. They want there to be risk, they want players to think and use their abilities to survive. If an attack is going to be punishing though, they want it to be visible, with crisp and clear boundaries, so that players can tell what’s going on.
Professions
- Artisan Curios are new profession flavored drops that players will find throughout the Forbidden Reach. Starting out as Damaged Curious, they can be repaired by various professions, either yourself or through work orders – once repaired, they’ll summon a rare mob which drops a bunch of profession related items. Each profession has a different item and summons a different rare, and although everyone who participates in defeating the rare will find rewards, the person who actually summoned it will get extra bonuses, including an extra point of knowledge for the related profession each week. The repaired curious can also be bought and sold on the auction house for money-making opportunities!
- The intent of this is to help make professions meaningful beyond just the recipes and crafting.
Evolving Philosophy
- The philosophical underpinnings of Dragonflight are rooted in player agency, empowering everyone to seek out the activities they enjoy and play the game they want to play it. There’s a wide range of parallel reward tracks, cosmetics, and utility, but they don’t want it to feel like there’s just one right way to play Dragonflight.
- The developers want players to ask themselves “what do I want to do today?” instead of “what do I have to do today?” and they’re really excited to carry that philosophy forward into the Forbidden Reach, Embers of Neltharion, and beyond.
