WoW Patch 9.1.5 Announcement Roundup

There’s a hefty new World of Warcraft update on the horizon, folks. I’m here today to give you a brief rundown of everything we know about what will be in Patch 9.1.5, as well as a few of my thoughts on the changes and additions. I should mention right off the bat that this patch may apparently already be on the game’s Public Test Realm (PTR) by the time this article is published. If that’s the case, the PTR doesn’t currently feature everything the full patch will contain once it reaches live servers. The information I’ll be discussing in this piece comes from a so-called “blue post” on the official World of Warcraft forums.

First up, we have a few rather major updates to the Covenant system. Blizzard has stated that players who have attained the highest level of Renown with their chosen Covenant “will be able to freely switch among any of the four Covenants with no cooldowns or restrictions.” Furthermore, rewards that were originally exclusive to a certain Covenant based on your renown level, such as mounts, pets, and transmog gear sets that you earn will be available to you no matter how many times or how frequently you alter your Covenant.

You only have to reach the highest Renown level with one Covenant on a single character for this update to apply to all characters on your account. The next update to the Covenant system is that what’s known as “Conduit Energy” will be removed entirely, thus enabling players to swap out their Conduits at will with no associated restrictions. I haven’t currently progressed far enough within the Covenant system to have any clue what this means, so I’m afraid I can’t offer much in the way of my personal opinions on these changes.

The final update regarding Covenants dictates that “completing a Covenant campaign on one character will allow alternate characters the ability to skip that same Covenant’s campaign,” and will automatically and immediately earn the appropriate amounts of Renown and a third Soulbind unlock. This sounds to me like a beneficial update, but I suppose I’ll have to experience more of the Covenant system before I know for sure.

Moving on from Covenant-specific updates, next up is the fact that new character customization options will be made available in Patch 9.1.5 for Lightforged Draenei, Nightborne, and Void Elf characters. Beyond that, new appearances will be added for the Druid class’s Travel Form, as well as new Soulshapes for members of the Night Fae Covenant.

Personally, I’ve long thought that Lightforged Draenei have always been a bit disadvantaged in terms of customization options, so I’m glad to see Blizzard addressing this. Rumor has it that Blizzard is also looking into adding new customization options for Highmountain Tauren, though these probably won’t be included in Patch 9.1.5.

For the next update, Patch 9.1.5 will introduce Legion Timewalking. For those who may be unfamiliar with the Timewalking system, this will allow higher-level characters to “[d]elve into Legion dungeons […] and experience the dangers within, including access to Legion Mythic+ dungeons.” Blizzard also mentions that the first time a Legion Timewalking event occurs, it’ll run for two weeks, and then return to a normal one-week schedule per event thereafter.

Next up, we’ve got the change that easily has me the most excited out of anything that’s reportedly coming in this patch. Once Patch 9.1.5 has reached live game servers, the Shadowlands introductory quest chain will be made entirely skippable so long as you’ve completed it at least once. Blizzard notes that this questline can be skipped by speaking to Highlord Darion Mograine within either Stormwind City or Orgrimmar.

Moving on, Blizzard has announced that Patch 9.1.5 will enable players to queue for Battle for Azeroth‘s Island Expeditions either solo or with a party. Players who queue for this content will be able to complete Island Expeditions ranging from Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties. Personally, this strikes me as quite an odd change, since I doubt very many players will be excited about it due to the possibility that Island Expeditions could be entirely obsolete by this point. Still, I suppose it’s a nice quality-of-life update.

Blizzard hasn’t revealed all that many details about the next slew of planned updates in Patch 9.1.5 yet. All they’ve announced on this front is that “[w]e are working on additional updates to a variety of class updates and class abilities including Conduits, Runecarving, and Covenant class ability tuning.” That’s essentially all we have to go on at this point, so I find myself wondering what sorts of updates Blizzard might have up their collective sleeve.

Next up, we’ve got a change that would have excited me if not for the fact that I’ve already unlocked every playable Allied Race. Namely, Blizzard has announced that certain Allied Races whose unlock requirements included the completion of any dungeons (such as Mechagnomes, Kul Tiran Humans, and Dark Iron Dwarves) will no longer require players to complete those dungeons. This could prove to be quite a nice change for players who want to unlock Mechagnomes, but don’t want to contend with the so-called “mega-dungeon” known as Operation: Mechagon. In fact, as far as I’m aware, this dungeon is still only available on Heroic and Mythic difficulties.

Moving on, there will apparently be a couple of new fast travel points players can unlock within the Maw once Patch 9.1.5 rolls out on live servers. Namely, from Ve’nari’s Refuge, players will be able to unlock the ability to quickly travel to Perdition Hold and Desmotaeron. Blizzard has not yet stated exactly how these fast travel points are meant to be unlocked, however. For all we know, it could be a simple matter of talking to a Flight Master in these locations, or it could be a more involved process.

Next on the list of Patch 9.1.5’s updates is one that dictates that completing quests given to you by Archivist Roh-Suir will eventually provide access to a so-called “Anima Diverter.” Players can presumably use this device to deposit Anima into their chosen Covenant’s reserves without having to travel all the way back to their Covenant’s headquarters. Again, I haven’t really experienced enough of the Covenant system to know how significant of a change this will be, but I suspect it won’t exactly hurt anything to be able to deposit Anima to our Covenants right from Korthia.

Blizzard has additionally announced a few updates to provide for a smoother experience when leveling alts through Shadowlands content. Namely, players will have access to another level of upgrades for Heirloom gear, as well as changes to the Threads of Fate system. These alterations to Threads of Fate will apparently allow players to level via completing runs within Torghast, and gain Renown with their chosen Covenant by completing Bonus Objectives within Shadowlands zones.

Moving on, we’ve got another update upon which Blizzard hasn’t yet shared that many specific details. They’ve stated that “lower item-level PvP gear will now scale to a higher item level in PvP situations than before. This should reduce the power level gap so that new characters can feel that they’re able to compete in Battlegrounds and Arenas more readily. This change will not affect high item-level PvP gear.”

We’re in the home stretch now, folks! Just two more particularly minor updates to go. The first of these dictates that “drop rates for Runecarving recipes will be increased to 100% drop rate in any dungeon difficulty.” Secondly, Blizzard has announced that legacy loot rules will be enabled for all level 60 characters in all Battle for Azeroth dungeons and raids. This will cause encounters to drop the same number of items they would ordinarily drop for a twenty-player raid group or a five-player dungeon party, depending on the circumstances of whether you’re in a raid or dungeon.

There you have it! I hope I’ve properly run down everything we know about Patch 9.1.5 so far, even the stuff Blizzard hasn’t told us much about yet. I’m curious to know, which of the updates I’ve discussed are you most (and/or least) looking forward to? Why might that be? Do feel free to sound off in this article’s comments if you’re so inclined!