Everything we know about the Dragonflight pre-expansion events, now live!

WoW’s Dragonflight Primal Storms pre-expansion event is now live! Though we’re still a couple of weeks away from Dragonflight launch day on November 28, the pre-patch event gives us a lot to do — even if you aren’t spending the day customizing and leveling a new Dracthyr. In this second phase of the Dragonflight pre-patch, we have new quests, invasions with elemental bosses, a revamped dungeon, and catchup gear you can buy with a new event-specific currency.

So let’s look at what the pre-expansion event has to offer. Here’s what we know about the Primal Storms event so far.

What does the Primal Storms pre-expansion event include?

A new quest chain: This quest sends players out into the world to chase down the Elemental Storm invasions. For Horde players, the quest starts in Orgrimmar and sends them to Un’Goro. For Alliance players, the quest starts in Stormwind and sends them to the Badlands. Then the Elemental Storms and the bosses kick in.

Primal Storm invasion events: There are four elemental bosses (along with their minions) to defeat throughout Azeroth, in Northern Barrens, Tirisfal Glades, the Badlands, and Un’Goro Crater — the bosses spawn randomly in the four zones, so you don’t know which one will be up until it’s up. On the map, you’ll see zones marked by a glowing diamond where there’s a Primalist Invasion, and each one respawns 30 minutes after the boss is defeated. When these invasions are up and you enter the zone, a progress bar called Elemental Protection pops up, letting you know just how many elementals are left to battle. Once the bar reaches zero — this is a group effort by all players in the zone, not just you — the elemental boss will be attackable (you’ll see its location on the map). Killing each boss rewards a feat of strength: Against the Elements.

Primeval Essence event currency: You’ll collect this by doing Primal Storm invasions: the Primal Storm bosses drop 15-20 Primeval Essences, and ordinary Primalist mobs drop 3-5 each. The currency is account-bound, so you can collect it on any character and then use it to gear up alts or collect event-specific transmog looks.

New catchup gear and loot: Your newly-earned Primeval Essences are mainly for buying catchup gear — armor, weapons, and jewelry — at ilevel 252. That’s a good start for gearing up your new alts, but it has a unique transmog look even if you don’t need the gear. Each piece of gear costs between 25 and 45 Essences, and you’ll need 315 Essences to buy a complete armor set to complete each transmog ensemble. One-handed weapons cost an additional 25 Essences, while two-handed weapons cost 45 Essences. There’s a single toy to purchase — Bag of Furious Winds — but other than that there’s cnot much else to spend the new currency on. However, if you kill all four bosses you’ll get drops that can be combined into the Unstable Elemental Confluence heirloom trinket. These drops aren’t guaranteed, so you’ll may need to get a few kills of each boss to earn one.

Revamped Uldaman dungeon: There’s also a new level 60 dungeon to queue for: Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr. This is normal mode only dungeon and drops ilevel 278 gear, and a quest to complete the dungeon awards an ilevel 278 weapon, which should give you a good head-start on gearing in the expansion.

And that’s the Primal Storm event, which is now live as part of Dragonflight pre-patch phase 2 launch. The event should last until November 28, when Dragonflight launches, so you have plenty of time to collect gear.

Initially published October 18, 2022. Updated November 19, 2022.