Tagging mobs is no longer faction-specific in World of Warcraft Dragonflight

There’s no burying the lede here: the World of Warcraft Twitter account announced that faction no longer impacts mob tagging in Dragonflight. That means that if an Alliance player attacks a mob first, a Horde player can still attack it and get loot and quest credit. That’s something that may be particularly relevant when Dragonflight launches on November 28 and zones are crowded with players rushing to complete quests. Goodbye, nightmares of busy quest areas in new expansions. You are no longer relevant to my gaming experience!

Horde 🤝 Alliance

Sharing mob tags in #Dragonflight

— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) October 12, 2022

Mob tagging has a storied history in WoW, going from the original experience — preserved in Classic — where one mob gets one tag and that’s it. If you and another player had the same mob targeted, and they beat you to the first attack, oh well — keep searching, grasshopper. The system has improved over the years, but stuck to hard faction lines.

In retail, up to five ungrouped members of the same faction can tag a regular mob, after which you see the unit frame turn gray, indicating the mob is tapped. World Bosses and rare mobs are an exception to that five player rule, and have certainly opened up freedom for questing on this front — at least for players not using war mode. And while these differences have been a distinct improvement, players can still attest to the undeniable frustration involved with the caveats and exclusions.

We’ve previously speculated what Blizzard could do following Shadowlands to continue improving the system, and it seems like Blizzard has granted our wishes with faction-free tagging. Opening up mob tagging naturally fits into the open-world questing experience of Dragonflight. There’s no question of identifying other players in your vicinity — you tag a mob, kill it, and boom, quest progress! While the original tweet was brief, the pre-patch notes include the following (admittedly succinct) elaboration:

Frankly, this change is still delightful and inches us ever closer to a world where faction divides are a cosmetic choice. If we can have cross-faction grouping and cross-faction tagging, perhaps we can also get our cross-faction guilds! And cross-faction guild housing! Who knows what 2023 could bring? Stay tuned for more details!

Originally published October 12, 2022. Updated October 20, 2022