by Magistrate - 5 years ago     show comments

We’re returning today to another open world zone assault in Battle for Azeroth from the 8.1 PTR. Zone-wide assaults return in the upcoming patch similar to Legion assaults. Kul Tiras and Zandalar will feature timed events where you must push back against NPCs of the opposing faction for gear, rep, and experience rewards. In this post, we look at the Horde assault on Drustvar, where the player defends as the Alliance.

• Miss other Alliance or Horde assault reviews? We’ve got you covered!
• Some of this is recap of the overall assault system. Simply skip to the Drustvar Assault section if you already know the basics!

BFA Assault Overview & Rewards

• The game focuses on one of the six BFA zones at a time.
• Horde or Alliance can do the assault regardless of whose continent it occurs on.
  • Horde defend in Horde zones and attack in Alliance zones.
  • Alliance defend in Alliance zones and attack in Horde zones.
  • These assaults are not wpvp in nature unless you have War Mode on.
• New Horde or Alliance mobs, rares, and World Quests spawn with new quest mechanics.
• Complete 4 assault World Quests to move to the next stage of your faction’s defense.
• Complete the 4 World Quests and defeat or defend in the name of your faction for rewards:
  • Up to 370 ilvl gear cache.
  • XP: Great for gearing and leveling alts 110-120!
  • Reputation with 7th Legion or the Honorbound, as well as the participating zone’s major reputation (Order of Embers for Alliance in Drustvar).
  • 7th Legion or Honorbound Service Medals, a new currency in 8.1.
  • Azerite Power.

Drustvar Assault

While the Stormsong Valley assault focused on a more general Horde and Orc invasion theme, Drustvar is overwhelmed with plague and Forsaken. Alliance players will recognize many Lightforged constructs and defensive structures, as well as many Lightforged Draenei soldiers, in and around the main assault area, Arom’s Stand.

Quests below reflect some, but not necessarily all, possible Drustvar assault World Quests.

One thing I’m noticing is that assault rares seem tougher relative to player ilvl (370) than most rares for a long time. As a mage main, I had to skip most of them, but a tank, warlock, or classes with self heals would probably be able to solo them.

• Bird’s Eye View: Players loot a jetpack/Goblin glider device in the nearby quest POI. This jetpack will create two different action buttons–the first will shoot you into the air, and then when you’re in the air it will allow you to jump to a nearby location on click. You’ll have to use this method to scale the surrounding mountains and rooftops of Arom’s Stand to procure spy gear and kill Horde scouts.
• Brought to Light: Players pick up the Hide-No-More 2000 at the nearby quest POI. This turns on the stealth detection ring around the player, just like the NPCs in Suramar. You must then locate, unstealth, and kill saboteurs in the battlefield. When you get near a spy, an action button will pop up allowing you to use Intruder Alert!, which unstealths them so you can kill them. Note: Spies are mostly found around the Lightforged batteries and crystal structures, as these are what they’re trying to sabotage.
• Duchess Fallensong (not shown below): Players will find a Blood Elf Death Knight at the head of a frozen pond. The ring of nearby Alliance NPCs will do nothing to help you, so you can ignore them. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard rarespawn, just with Frost Death Knight abilities. (As a clothie, she hit me like a truck at 370.)
• A Drust Cause: At a nearby farm, this is your standard Quick & Easy (TM) kill 8 soldiers and heal 6 wounded allies.
• Fungal Infestation: Grumbol Grimhammer informs players that Horde on a nearby farm have been infested by some sort of fungus. You’ll have to fill the progress meter by slaying mushroom-possessed Orcs, the elite Overgrown Grunt, and burning infested corpses.
• Muk’luk (not shown below): Players will kill a yeti rarespawn named Muk’luk. He has a charging stun, a conal AoE, and an interruptable fear. (Again, I had some difficulty soloing him as a clothie, and he hits hard at 370.)

After completing 4 assault World Quests, players will be directed back to Arom’s Stand, where they must mount a griffon to mount the final blow against the overhead Horde airship. Falstad Wildhammer informs you that the ship is carrying a huge payload of plague that needs to be neutralized.

For this final stage, you’ll just have to detonate the plague bombs on the ship (don’t worry, their green goo does nothing to you), and then kill two elites, one at the helm of the ship on the top, and one carrying a plague barrel in the bottom. Neither are difficult, although Kaldras Snape does have two (easy) hounds at his side. Complete these steps, hop on the griffon to return to safety, and Falstad will congratulate your efforts as you watch the airship explode in plague.

(Strategic note: this huge ship filled with plague would logically also spill this crap all over the countryside and then crash somewhere with a high concentration of toxic death seeping out of it, but I guess Falstad knows best.)

Finally, players will return to Quartermaster Alcorn, who will unceremoniously award the 370 ilvl loot cache, Order of Embers rep, and an XP boost for low levels.

Drustvar Assault Footage

Keep in mind this is PTR footage and is subject to change.

Don’t miss the rest of our patch 8.1: Tides of Vengeance coverage! The next patch lands December 11 in the US, 12 in EU, and 13 in Asia.