Season of Discovery Ahn’Qiraj raids will have a new high-risk, high-reward difficulty mode

WoW Classic Season of Discovery Phase 6 begins on November 21 and marks the beginning of the Qiraji War Effort event, which is the preamble to the launch of the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj and Temple of Ahn’Qiraj endgame raids on December 6. The Ahn’Qiraj raids will have a new optional difficulty system called Descent Into Madness that continues to the Season of Discovery trend of new challenges in endgame content. Descent Into Madness functions differently than Molten Core heat levels and Trials of the Dragonflights in Blackwing Lair of adding random mechanics and modifiers to overcome — instead, Descent Into Madness lets raiders opt in to a high-risk, high-reward system that’s always a gamble.

Players will be able to test the new system themselves on the Phase 6 PTR, which goes live today, so we should have more first hand information soon. But for now, here’s what you need to know if you decide to take on this challenge in Ahn’Qiraj!

How to opt in to Descent Into Madness

Descent Into Madness is present in both the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj and the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. Players will need to opt into this system at the beginning of each raid before the first boss encounter.

Like the other optional raid difficulties, there will likely be some new object or NPC every player needs to interact with to opt in. We don’t know what it will be right now but will have a better idea once the Phase 6 PTR testing starts.

How Descent Into Madness Works

Descent Into Madness will increase the difficulty of each boss and give players a limited number of tries to beat the boss. If the group defeats the boss within the allotted number of tries, a chest of bonus rewards will appear. Players have a choice — loot the chest and get your rewards or ignore the chest and proceed to the next boss. Choosing to ignore the chest taking on the next boss will destroy the chest but add more rewards to that next boss’s chest, and this choice continues through the raid.

Each raid will have a certain number of checkpoints that rewards a minimum amount of bonus loot once reached. Should the players fail a boss encounter after reaching a checkpoint, they’ll still get something. Something to note is the number of baseline rewards for each Phase 6 raid boss has been increased compared to other raid bosses. The Descent Into Madness rewards are bonus items designed to earned in addition to a boss’s regular loot pool. The bonus rewards are not inherently more powerful, just more in quantity.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the about Descent Into Madness system, like how many checkpoints are in each raid and or how many tries players get for each boss. We’ll have a better idea of how the mechanics work once the PTR goes live on November 12 so we’ll keep you updated once we know more!