Patch 9.1 for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, "The Chains of Domination," will go live on June 29th. The WoW community has been anxiously awaiting this content update and for good reason. A number of important changes are set to take place with Chains of Domination, which includes the ability to unlock flying and various catch-up mechanics for players who are behind on things like "Soul Ash" on either their main character or on their alts. Briefly, an "alt" simply refers to a character that a player adventures as in addition to a "main" or full-time class. Blizzard had previously promised a more alt-friendly expansion with Shadowlands and that promise was not entirely fulfilled. Grinding Torghast and Anima and Renown Levels (within the Covenant system) has proved to be incredibly time-consuming.
It should come as no surprise that WoW is associated with long power curves for character progression, but the community has been asking for systems that allow players to keep up with more than one class without completely falling behind the pack. Patch 9.1 looks to change some of the unforgiving aspects of the grind to allow for greater exploration of the many classes and specializations in the game. Before jumping into flying in patch 9.1, here are a few of the notable changes coming in The Chains of Domination: the new Raid Sanctum of Domination, a new Mythic+ rating system, the ability to unlock Flying, Arena Season 2, increased Renown drop chance, and increased Soul Ash drop chance as well as the ability to select a token from the Great Vault that will grant more Soul Ash.
Taking to the Skies with Flying in Patch 9.1
Unlocking the ability to fly in WoW in one part rite of passage and one part ritual. To start flying in The Chains of Domination, one needs to have already advanced their Covenant Renown level to 40 (this is the Renown cap until 9.1). Once 9.1 goes live, players will need to set out to finish a new set of Covenant campaign chapters. At Renown level 44, Covenant campaign chapter 4 becomes available and this chapter is called The Last Sigil. Keep in mind, this chapter only unlocks in the second week of the content update. At the end of this questline the game will reward players with a consumable called Memories of Sunless Skies.
This pathway for flying represents a slight shift from previous expansions where one would need to grind out the Pathfinder achievements to unlock flying in expansion zones. Once The Last Sigil is completed and the consumable is used, players will be awarded Expert Riding Skill and this will allow flying Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and Revendreth. As with previous flying patches in WoW, this will be a milestone for Shadowlands.
This patch also brings the additional cosmetic reward of Covenant-specific flying mounts. These mounts become available at Renown level 45 and Renown level 70. Necrolord players at Renown 45 can earn the Maldraxxian Corpsefly Harness. At Renown 45 Night Fae gets the Ardenweald Wilderling Harness and at this same Renown level Kyrian get Elysian Aquilon. Once again, at Renown 45 the Venthyr acquire Sinfall Gravewing. To be honest, these mounts look quite appealing. One additional note unrelated to flying, all ground mounts will now be usable in The Maw in this patch, which should come as a huge relief since the classes that do not have shapeshift abilities really had no way to travel around in this area without grinding a time-consuming Maw-specific mount. Elysian aquilons, majestic wolf serpents, colorful corpseflies, awakened stoneborn, these flying mounts are a welcome burst of content in addition to all the other system-wide changes coming in World of Warcraft Shadowlands: The Chains of Domination.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is available on PC, Macintosh operating systems and macOS.