Get started with Timewalking in WoW

It’s Timewalking time! This bonus event offers some great rewards, so when a Timewalking weekend rolls around you’ll want to participate. You can pick up:

• Cache of Nightmarish Treasures, with gear scaled based on your progress in Emerald Nightmare
• Seal of Broken Fate for Emerald Nightmare (and eventually Nighthold) bonus rolls
• Accolade of Victory, which awards 100 Artifact Power
• Timewarped Badges that will buy you mounts, toys, and more
• Have a chance to get the Infinite Timereaver mount from any boss

If you haven’t been paying attention to the new Timewalking feature, this is how it works:

• Every Timewalking bonus event, you can run a selection of old-school dungeons.
• Bonus events run weekly from Tuesday through the following Tuesday. Eight bonus events are on the rotation, and three of them are Timewalking events.
• There’s a Burning Crusade bonus event (featuring The Arcatraz, Black Morass, Magisters’ Terrace, Mana-Tombs, The Slave Pens, and The Shattered Halls), a Wrath of the Lich King bonus event (featuring Ahn’kahet, Gundrak, Halls of Lightning, The Nexus, Pit of Saron, and Utgarde Pinnacle), and a Cataclysm bonus event (featuring End Time,  Grim Batol, Lost City of the Tol’vir, The Stonecore, The Vortex Pinnacle, and Throne of the Tides).
• You’ll be scaled down to be level-appropriate for that dungeon’s content,which means that these dungeons are a bit of a challenge — but also that you can play with friends and alts that are well under level 110. As long as you’re over the level required to run the original dungeon — that’s level 71 for Burning Crusade dungeons, level 81 for Wrath of the Lich King dungeons, and level 86 for Cataclysm dungeons — you’re good.
• You can do dungeon quests, get achievements, and earn reputation while Timewalking, just like you would if you were running the dungeon normally. Though it’s certainly more challenging than achievement-hunting or rep-grinding when you outlevel the dungeon, it’s a fun way to do either with friends.

When are Timewalking weekends?

You’ll find Timewalking weekends marked on the in-game calendar. Timewalking events run from Tuesday to the following Tuesday and alternate with a variety of other events, including Battle Pet XP bonus weekends, World Quest bonus weekends, Legion dungeon reputation bonus weekends, Battleground bonus weekends, and Arena bonus weekends. If it’s not a Timewalking weekend, you can still run the dungeons in their regular modes, but you can’t run them as Timewalking dungeons, where your abilities are scaled down to dungeon level and the gear drops are scaled up to your level.

How do I run a Timewalking dungeon?

To Timewalk, you don’t want to just walk to the instance portal — that will just send you into the instance as it usually exists, without any scaling or extra rewards. Instead, you’ll want to open the LFG tool and from the pull down menu under Dungeon Finder select the Timewalker option. Even if you have a full group of players joining you, you have to use LFG to queue for this particular dungeon mode.

Max-level players will want to remember to pick up the week’s timewalking quest from Archmage Timear in Dalaran for more rewards.

What happens when I zone in?

Your abilities and gear will automatically be scaled down to be level appropriate for the dungeon, though you’ll have all of your skills, talents, and glyphs appropriate to your level, so gameplay is pretty much the same as it is anywhere else. Just don’t panic if you open your character screen and notice that your gear looks terrible and your damage has plummeted — you’ll still be powerful enough to take on any challenge the dungeon has to throw at you and your gear will go back to normal when you zone out.

How should I gear?

While whatever you have equipped is perfectly fine. Because gear is scaled down to the dungeon’s level, even the horribly under-geared can get along: it doesn’t really matter what you’re wearing as long as it’s at or above the ilevel of the dungeon. Even levelers still wearing heirlooms shouldn’t have a problem.

What can I get?

All of the mobs in the dungeon will drop loot appropriate to their scaled-down level — so expect low level greens, cloth, crafting materials, and consumables. The dungeon’s bosses, however, will drop scaled up gear that’s suitable for your level, whether you’re level 110 or level 75.

During each Timewalking weekend, you’ll also have a quest to run five Timewalking dungeons for a Cache of Nightmarish Treasures, Seal of Broken Fate, and Accolade of Victory. Look for Archmage Timear in Dalaran to pick up A Burning Path Through Time (for Burning Crusade), A Frozen Path Through Time (for Wrath of the Lich King), or A Shattered Path Through Time (for Cataclysm), depending on the weekend.

And, while you won’t be able to get them in a single weekend, there are some excellent long-term Timewalking rewards. You collect Timewarped Badges in every dungeon — 30 to 45 per run — which you can turn in for mounts, toys, heirloom upgrades, and more. You can also nab 500 badges per event by completing The Swirling Vial (for Burning Crusade), The Unstable Prism (for Wrath), and The Smoldering Ember Alliance/Horde (for Cataclysm), all started when you pick up the associated item drop from a Timewalking dungeon.

Just be aware that you’re in this for the long haul. The two mount rewards cost 5,000 badges each, so it will take well more than one Timewalking weekend to collect everything.

Help! I don’t know any of the strategies!

Though these dungeons haven’t really changed from their original incarnations, we don’t blame you if you can’t remember what you’re supposed to do in each. For a quick refresher course, check out our guide to Timewalking dungeons of the Burning Crusade and our guide to Timewalking dungeons of Wrath of the Lich King.

What other dungeons can I Timewalk?

Though we’d love to Timewalk our way through the entire game, these dungeons are are the only ones available for Timewalking right now. But Blizzard has hinted that the system may be expanded and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for more dungeons and raids moving forward.