What To Prepare Before Wrath of the Lich King Classic

With Wrath of the Lich King confirmed in later 2022, players have taken up arms in excitement for this most popular expansion to ever release in an MMO history. All of this is exciting, but we must wait patiently for its release, or do we?

One thing we can do while we wait for the WOTLK release in late 2022 is to prepare for what we do beforehand so that we can experience the expansion to its fullest when it releases. In this guide, we will go over what you should do before the release of WOTLK and the best ways of achieving it.

Wrath of the Lich King or WOTLK is the expansion Blizzard Entertainment released in 2007 featuring the most beloved story from Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne. In this, we follow the story of Arthas Menethil, the Prince of Loderon, in his misadventure of madness and lust for power and vengeance. Back in the early 2000s, most players were captivated by the story, and when Blizzard said they could go against the Lich King (Arthas Menethil) in a 3D environment with their friends, it left them excited beyond words.

Along with story changes, WOTLK brings many new gameplay mechanics to WoW with more difficult raids and dungeons. There are also major map and graphics changes bringing forward the new map of Northrend featuring the following zones:

●Borean Tundra (Starting Northrend Zone - Levels 68-72)

●Howling Fjord (Starting Northrend Zone - Levels 68-72)

●Coldarra (Connected to Borean Tundra, recommended levels 70-72)

●Dragonblight (Low-level Northrend Zone - Levels 71-74)

●Grizzly Hills (Mid Level Northrend Zone - Levels 73-75)

●Zul'Drak (Mid Level Northrend Zone 74 - 77)

●Sholazar Basin (Mid to High-level Northrend Zone 76 – 78, Map)

●The Storm Peaks ( Mid To Late Game Northrend Zone 77 – 80, Map)

●Crystalsong Forest ( Mid To late Game Northrend Zone 77 – 80, Map)

●Dalaran (Sanctuary city of the Kirin Tor that floats above Crystalsong Forest, Map)

●Icecrown - (Late Game Northrend Zone 78-80)

●Wintergrasp (PvP Zone with a battleground element)

WOTLK will release sometime from September to December, giving us loads of time to focus on the items we will mention in this guide. To prepare correctly for WOTLK, we need to know what will be changed from 2007 till its release in 2022. We have an article that will show you all you need to know in great detail, but let’s go over a quick list for now.

There have been no changes to flying in WOTLK yet; it will still be available at level 76 in Dalaran and a scroll for purchase once a player has reached level 70. You can follow this WotLK Classic Flying guide to know more about Flying in WotLK Classic.

There will no longer be a dungeon finder for WOTLK, meaning leveling up will be through quests and dungeons within those zones. Expect to shout out looking for group a whole lot during WOTLK as experience points were harder to come by from 70-80.

Gear will remain the same, acquired through dungeons and emblem farming. However, the reward for completing a random heroic has been changed from 2 Emblems of Frost in the Dungeon Finder to completing your first Heroic for the day. You can also visit this What We Know About WotLK Classic guide to know about the changes.

Warcraft has one singular monetary currency and is gold. Check our store for great cheap WotLK Classic gold deals before spending months farming; this will save you loads of time and money from Subscriptions for no content. Gold will be incredibly useful throughout WOTLK, having Epic items crafted and sold on the Auction House with each profession. Additionally, flying will no longer be useable until level 77, with a hefty price tag of 2k gold.

However, this cost is modifiable through reputation, but gold will still need to be farmed before WOTLK to get flying. Once you have a character at 80, you can send flying through a scroll to any character at level 70 to allow them to start flying early; this will cost an additional sum of gold.

Speaking of currency, let’s talk about servers. Right now, most servers' currencies are overflowing. As a response, Blizzard will be creating fresh new WOTLK servers, meaning all players will start at level 1 on those servers. These servers will not allow for level boosts for 90 days. If you want to prepare for those servers, we suggest finding another game to fill out that time since you cannot affect anything on these servers till their release.

As for players who will continue from TBC Classic into WOTLK Classic, you will be allowed to play on both factions from WOTLK, so if you’re tired of Horde or Alliance, you can swap over, albeit at level 1.

Certain items, like most end-tier raid gear, from TBC will remain stronger than most green/blue items from Northrend; however, the moment you get into dungeon heroics, you will start to swap out those TBC epic gear items. So we’d recommend using the next few months to farm out epic gear from TBC. We have a guide coming out for all items that you should keep for WOTLK from TBC.

Professions take a major role in WOTLK, arguably larger than TBC. Make sure to farm as many early game minerals/herbs/skins as many players will be rerolling their professions into the top tier professions for their classes in WOTLK. Farming these resources early will give you the edge on the AH when WOTLK releases. Most players in WOTLK will take crafting professions (Tailoring, Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, and Blacksmithing). They will need these resources to further their skill level, so being one of the only suppliers will make you large amounts of gold.

The changes to WOTLK from 2007 to 2022 change how it plays out; stick with our guide to ensure you're ready for WOTLK! If you're struggling on the gold grind, save your hours of grinding in TBC for epic flying or epic riding, and check out our deals at WotLKClassicGold.com. Watch our other guides for WotLK Classic to know more.