WoWMar 25, 2024 10:00 am CT

Everything you need to know about the return of Plunderstorm, WoW’s PVP battle royale

It’s baaaaackkkkkkk! Plunderstorm has returned to WoW, a unique 60-player battle royale style game in which only one player will be left standing. And if you’re eager to earn Plunderstorm rewards, act fast: the event ends on February 18, 2025, so you just have a month to up your pirate-themed transmog game.

But if you’re disappointed with Blizzard bringing back what is essentially a pirate-themed PVP Battleground, bear with me for a moment, because Plunderstorm is more than that.

Okay, just what is Plunderstorm?

Plunderstorm is a unique game mode that exists outside the regular gameplay of World of Warcraft or WoW Classic — and yes, Classic players can participate too. In Plunderstorm, you aren’t playing your character: you’re playing a pirate, on the search for plunder in the Arathi Highlands.

As you play, you’ll unlock and upgrade unique new abilities (you can pick up two offensive abilities, two utility abilities, and one consumable), building your character over the duration of the match. There’s no fall damage in this game mode, and everyone can double jump to make it easy to navigate the map. Gameplay is more action-oriented than traditional WoW, with a streamlined UI (and no addons). As my compatriot Anna Bell described it, Plunderstorm is Fortnite without building.

Is Plunderstorm free to play?

Sorry, but no. You need an active World of Warcraft subscription to play Plunderstorm.

How to queue for Plunderstorm

Here’s how you join a Plunderstorm match:

Launch the modern World of Warcraft client — if you play Classic, you’ll have to install the modern client to play Plunderstorm.
Instead of logging on to your character, click the Plunderstorm in the upper left.
Create a Plunderstorm character — these are pre-made characters, so no gameplay knowledge is required, but you can customize the look to your heart’s content.
Select Practice to give the game mode a try, Solo to play alone, or Duo to group with a friend (or a stranger). If you select Duo but haven’t already grouped with a Battle.net friend in the lobby, you’ll be randomly paired with another player doing the same. There’s no guarantee you’ll be on the same page with your random partner, so I recommend playing solo or with a friend.

Queue up and get ready to plunder!

What abilities are available in Plunderstorm?

You aren’t playing your usual character during Plunderstorm, and all the abilities you can pick up during the match are unique. The skills you find are random, so you probably won’t wind up with the same build twice (unless you’re very lucky or very unlucky, depending). To find abilities, explore the map, open chests, and kill NPCs and other players. When you kill another player, they’ll drop the abilities they have equipped, which can be a great way to upgrade your own — but you’ll probably want to pick up some abilities through other means first.

The abilities are divided into three categories: offense, utility, and consumable. You can equip two offense abilities, two utility abilities, and one consumable. Abilities can be used as many times as you’d like, but consumables can only be used once. If you’ve equipped the maximum number of abilities, picking up other abilities will replace one of your existing abilities — but picking up another version of the same ability will upgrade it for more power.

If you were familiar with all of the abilities in the original Plunderstorm, you’ll find a few new ones to shake things up this time around. There have also been a few balance changes to the original spells, which we’ll note below — but don’t worry, because fan-favorite Fire Whirl is still an excellent “I win” button. (Though I continue to favor Rime Arrow, myself.)

Here are all of the abilities and consumables you can get in Plunderstorm:

Offensive abilities

New! Aura of Zealotry: Passively increase movement speed for your allies. Cast to consecrate the ground damaging enemies periodically. While in your consecration, gain enhanced movement speed and melee attacks.
New! Celestial Barrage: Call down a barrage of moonbeams, damaging enemies. This spell can be empowered to greatly increase its range.
Earthbreaker — Cooldown decreased by 2 seconds at all ranks.
Fire Whirl
Holy Shield
Mana Sphere
Rime Arrow
Searing Axe
Slicing Winds — Cooldown increased by 2 seconds at all ranks.
Star Bomb — Cooldown decreased by 2 seconds at all ranks.
Storm Archon — Cooldown decreased by 2 seconds at all ranks.
Toxic Smackerel — Cooldown increased by 1.5 seconds at all ranks.

Utility abilities

New! Call Galefeather – Call forth Galefeather to knock enemies back with heavy winds for a short duration.
New! Void Tear – Tear into the Void, placing a Void mark. Recast Void Tear to instantly return to the mark, damaging and slowing enemies. The recast can be performed instantly while casting any spell without interruption.
Explosive Caltrops
Fade to Shadow
Faeform
Hunter’s Chains
Lightning Bulwark
Quaking Leap
Repel
Snowdrift
Steel Traps
Windstorm

Consumables

As you play, you’ll be able to upgrade your abilities by grabbing additional copies of them (or by getting lucky and finding a high level version straight away). Each improvement in rarity gives your attacks more power.

Can you play Plunderstorm without PVP?

You can earn rewards without PVPing, but you’ll eventually be herded into other players where you’ll have to kill or be killed. (In my case, it’s always “be killed.”) However, if you aren’t that enthusiastic about a PVP event, there’s a lot for you to do — and PVE activities can help you earn plunder to get rewards (more on that in a minute).

If you want to skip out on the PVP, here’s what I recommend:

Stick to the edges of the map and avoid other players. See another player? Run away!
Complete the quest that pops up at the beginning of the match, which may require you to loot chests or kill elites.
Collect Plunder by killing NPCs, opening chests, and sometimes just out in the world.

The more Plunder you collect, the higher your reputation will be, and these PVE activities are a great way to earn it — particularly if you, like me, aren’t very good at PVP. If you need more advice, we have a guide on earning Plunderstorm rewards in PVE.

Rewards for playing Plunderstorm

Not into PVP? You can skip playing Plunderstorm and the only thing you’ll lose out on are cosmetics — and if you previously played Plunderstorm, the new rewards are only recolors of the original transmog, mounts, and pets. If you didn’t originally play Plunderstorm, you can also get the original coloration of these cosmetics during this as well. But if you just aren’t interested, you can skip the whole thing without missing out on much.

Instead of earning rewards through a Renown track, the latest version of Plunderstorm lets you buy the rewards you want directly with the plunder you earn in every match. This is an excellent change for players who don’t enjoy PVP but do enjoy transmog, as you can earn just as much plunder as you need to buy the rewards you want rather than having to complete the entire renown track.

For all of the details on rewards, we have a list of all the new rewards coming with the latest round of Plunderstorm.

Help! How do I modify my Plunderstorm UI?

Plunderstorm has a unique interface and you can’t use any addons and there’s no edit mode to customize your display, which can definitely be frustrating — particularly since your initial keybindings aren’t very intuitive. However, you can change basic interface options and keybindings — but only within a Plunderstorm match.

To modify your game settings, open the game menu and select options. From there you can change your keybindings and some other basic settings.

If you’d like to play Plunderstorm using a controller — the control scheme is pretty well suited to it — here’s how to set it up.

How long will Plunderstorm last?

Plunderstorm ends on February 18, 2025.

And now that we’re in our second round of Plunderstorm, it’s possible this will become a recurring event — so if you miss out on the latest rewards, don’t worry because there’s a good chance we’ll see them again later.