WoW’s 13th anniversary brings back classic world bosses, unique transmog gear

World of Warcraft released on November 23, 2004, which means it’s coming up on its official foray into its teenage years. Because of this, Blizzard is celebrating once again with an in-game event to honor our little baby MMO growing up from now until the morning of November 30. This time around? Classic world bosses have reappeared around Azeroth!

Those classic bosses include Azuregos, Lord Kazzak, and the four Dragons of Nightmare. Azuregos can be found in the southeast corner of Azshara, Lord Kazzak can be found in the Tainted Scar of Blasted Lands, and the Dragons of Nightmare can be found in either Duskwood, Ashenvale, Feralas, or the Hinterlands.

You’re eligible for loot from these bosses once per day, and you can earn 50 Timewarped Badges for doing so if you accept the quest “The Originals” before hunting them down, and this quest can be picked up for anyone level 60 or higher. Keep in mind, the Dragons of Nightmare are on a daily rotation — so if you’re camping a spawn point and don’t see something after a couple minutes, you’re at the wrong spot for the day.

Earn unique, long-removed transmog gear

So far, one of the biggest appeals of the anniversary event seems to be the return of transmoggable gear that was removed when these bosses were taken out of the game. Several pieces of loot from these bosses are completely unique and cannot be obtained anywhere else. In other words, if you want any of these appearances, this is likely your only window of opportunity.

Keep in mind, each boss drops more than what’s listed below, and you may not have some of the non-unique appearances. However, if you’re solely after unique gear, we’ve put together a list below to help you spend your bonus rolls more wisely. Oh, and if there’s something specific you want, you can use Seals of Broken Fate to bonus roll on these bosses!

Weapons/Off-hand items

• Amberseal Keeper — Lord Kazzak
• Empyrean Demolisher — Lord Kazzak
• Fang of the Mystics — Azuregos
• Typhoon — Azuregos
• Hammer of Bestial Fury — Shared drop among Dragons of Nightmare
• Trance Stone — Shared drop among Dragons of Nightmare
• Polished Ironwood Crossbow — Emeriss
• Nightmare Blade — Taerar

Cloth armor

• No unique armor for clothies, sorry!

Leather armor

• Dragonspur Wraps — Shared drop among Dragons of Nightmare
• Circlet of Restless Dreams— Emeriss
• Deviate Growth Cap — Lethon
• Boots of Fright — Taerar
• Unnatural Leather Spaulders — Taerar

Mail armor

• Boots of the Endless Moor — Emeriss
• Leggings of the Demented Mind — Ysondre

Plate armor

• Unmelting Ice Girdle — Azuregos
• Gauntlets of the Shining Light — Lethon
• Acid Inscribed Pauldrons — Ysondre

Depending on how you look at it, clothies either have things very lucky or very unlucky here. There’s less they need to farm, but that also means fewer rewards total. On the other hand, leather-wearers should prepare to use a lot of bonus rolls — and potentially farm on plenty of alts.

But wait, there’s more!

Update: Unfortunately, it looks like the Bronze-Tinted Sunglasses can only be transmogged during the anniversary event (every year).

On top of all of the above transmog gear, this year’s anniversary event brings back several of the goodies from past years — including a Corgi pet! — as well as introduces a new cosmetic item. For 200 Timewarped Badges, you can purchase some freaking fabulous Bronze-Tinted Sunglasses.

Keep in mind, you receive 200 Timewarped Badges for opening the anniversary present, so the sunglasses are essentially a freebie! Also don’t forget that you need to either transmog these, stick them in Void Storage, or outright delete them for them to become permanent fixtures of your Appearance tab. Don’t mistakenly buy these on more than one character — there’s no need!

In addition to cosmetic rewards, opening the present in the mail will grant you a reusable item that grants a 13% boost to both reputation and experience gains. This makes the anniversary a perfect time to level alts and farm reputation — especially if you’re after those dang Paragon mounts. And even if you don’t plan on doing either of those things, the bosses dropping item-level 900 gear on a daily basis means you can easily bump any of your characters’ item levels up no problem.

A solid throwback

Overall, the return of these world bosses is a nice reminder of how far the game has come. Some of the mechanics feel incredibly “vanilla” in that they’re fairly basic but also super melee unfriendly. Taerar, for example, knocks players back with his tail, fears players randomly, and summons pools of poison that will put anyone who steps in them asleep. On my Rogue, I basically ended up in a constant state of “run in, use a few abilities, get knocked back or feared into a poison cloud, run in again, repeat” — it was a blast!

Thankfully, even if the mechanics are as frustrating as ever, nothing the bosses do is as lethal as it used to be. Having played way back when these were legitimate end-game content, it’s pretty fun to see players return to fight them. Plus, it’s almost surreal to experience the fights at something other than 10 FPS on the game’s lowest settings.

Thanks, Blizz! And happy 13th birthday to World of Warcraft!