Blizzard Watch Weekly: World of Warcraft turns 19 and Hearthstone heads to the Badlands

The news never stops, does it? Things from Blizzard have been pretty busy in the lead up to the holiday season, and I’m back to doing this roundup to help you keep up with it all. But if you’re looking to catch up on news that’s a little bit older, we also have a roundup of everything that happened at BlizzCon.

Good? Good. Now let’s take a look at what happened this week as well as what’s coming soon.

Now live

• Dragonflight Season 3 is underway, including a new Mythic+ season and the Amirdrassil raid (which really reminds us of Firelands). And a new raid means a new Race to World First — and the race is really just getting started as top guilds Liquid and Echo finish up Heroic splits and look to steamroll Mythic difficulty. Here’s where to watch the Amirdrassil RWF.
• Hearthstone’s Showdown in the Badlands expansion is now live, and we have a rundown of how to use the new Excavate and Quickdraw keywords.
• It’s World of Warcraft’s birthday! The game is officially 19 years old this year, to celebrate players can get a +19% XP and reputation buff, as well as grabbing a couple of new rewards.
• World of Warcraft patch 10.2.5, Seeds of Renewal is now live on the PTR. We have a general rundown of what’s in the patch, but you can check the patch notes for full details on what’s available. And I hope you like Dragonriding, because one of the patch’s headline features is Dragonriding will be available everywhere you can fly (at a slightly limited speed).
• A Heroes of the Storm patch went live this week and HotS evangelist Cory thinks this could be a sign of more to come. We’ll have to wait and see whether Cory’s too hopeful or whether Microsoft intends to revive the game.

Coming soon

• November 20 – 27: Mother’s Blessing is returning to Diablo 4 next week, giving all players +35% gold and XP (multiplicative). If you haven’t checked in on the game recently, Season 2’s myriad vampiric powers are pretty fun, and the latest XP buffs — even before counting Mother’s Blessing — have improved the game’s leveling grind. It’s a great time to play!
• November 30: WoW Classic takes us to a strange alternate version of World of Warcraft in Season of Discovery, where you’ll explore Azeroth to unlock new class abilities, so you can finally play that healing Mage you’ve always wanted to. There’s also a new raid in Blackfathom Deep raid, giving us a new take on the old dungeon. Are you excited? Because I’m pretty excited.
• December 5 – January 23: A little further out, Diablo 4 will be launching a new end-game challenge with the Abattoir of Zir, which sends level 100 players through an increasingly difficult gauntlet until they die. Sounds like Diablo in a nutshell.

Transmog watch!

There are so many new customizations and cosmetics, I can’t cover them all, but here are some interesting new looks that stood out to me.

• You have to see the new transmog coming for Love is in the Air next year. You just have to.
• If that isn’t your style, you should check out the new spring-themed looks that may be arriving with Noblegarden as Blizzard continues to update holiday events.
• If neither of those are your style, perhaps these practical explorer duds are for you?

As to the rest, Trolls, Draenei, and Warlock demons are getting some new customizations to perfect their look. Needless to say, there’s a lot of great transmog on the way with patch 10.2.5, which we expect to launch early next year.

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