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 began testing the new system themselves on the Phase 6 PTR, which went live Friday November 15, so we 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 and how it works

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 by interacting with the blue crystal obelisk at the beginning of each raid before each encounter. The obelisk is active by default and represents the standard raid difficulty and choosing to de-activate means you choose to enable Descent Into Madness which increase the difficulty of each boss, introduce sanity-based mechanics, 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.

If your group has no attempts remaining when a boss is beaten, you won’t be able to get rewards from the bonus chest and you’ll be unable to interact with the next obelisk, effectively ending your run. To prevent a feeling of total loss, players will reach a checkpoint after certain bosses and be able to obtain their extra rewards without ending their Descent Into Madness run. Since these are set checkpoints, it means each raid has an intended order of completion:

Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj

1. Kurinaxx
2. General Rajaxx
3. Moam (Checkpoint)
4. Buru the Gorger
5. Ayamiss the Hunter
6. Ossirian the Unscarred

Temple of Ahn’Qiraj

1. Prophet Skeram
2. Bug Trio
3. Battleguard Sartura (Checkpoint)
4. Frankriss the Unyielding
5. Viscidus
6. Princess Huhuran (Checkpoint)
7. Twin Emperors Vek’lor and Vek’nilash
8. Ouro
9. C’Thun (Checkpoint)

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.

Now that the mechanics are live on the PTR, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of tuning the Descent Into Madness will get before the raids go live, if any at all. We’ll keep you updated with any more changes we learn about as Phase 6 launches and the Qiraji war effort begins later this month!

Originally published on November 12, 2024. Updated on November 17, 2024.