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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is the first expansion for World of Warcraft, announced on October 28th, 2005, released on January 16th, 2007 in North America, Europe and Australia, February 2nd, 2007 in Korea, April 3rd, 2007 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and September 6th, 2007 in Mainland China. The main features include an increase of the level cap, the introduction of the blood elves and the draenei as playable races and the addition of the world of Outland, along with many new zones, dungeons, items, quests, and monsters.
Feateres :
New races
The Burning Crusade expansion contains two new playable races:
* Blood elf — A faction of former Alliance members join the Horde in the expansion. They are led by Regent Lord Lor'themar Theron. The Blood Elf capital is Silvermoon City. Their racial
mount is the bird-like hawkstrider and their language is Thalassian.
* Draenei — A faction of uncorrupted eredar join the Alliance. They are led by their prophet, Velen. The draenei capital city is The Exodar. Their racial mount is the elephant-like elekk and
their language is Draenei.
The expansion also allows previously faction-exclusive classes to be played on the opposing faction, with the inclusion of Horde blood elf paladins and Alliance draenei shaman.
New mounts
Each new race received its own new mount:
* Blood elf — a hawkstrider (originally called a cockatrice). These mounts can be found outside the entrance to Silvermoon City. Blood elf paladin mounts, are the same as alliance though
they are red instead of the alliance blue.
* Draenei — an elekk ("a creature with a resemblance to a caparisoned war elephant" — GameSpot). These mounts can be found outside The Exodar.
New mounts are also available via drop from high-end instances such as Karazhan.
Flying mounts
Main article: Flying Mount
Flying mounts are only usable in Outland at level 70. The Horde and Alliance have the wyvern and gryphon, respectively, as standard mounts. The epic mounts are the armored wyvern and
armored gryphon.
In addition there are rare mounts such as netherdrake and swift Nether Drake. An armored nether drake can be obtained by ranking in the top 0.5% at the end of an Arena season, and the
unarmored netherdrake can be obtained through a series of quests. There are also Nether Rays.
Normal flying mount training costs 800g and the mount costs 100g . Training for flying mounts requires a skill of 150 (epic mount) and brings it up to 225. The epic version of the flying mount
cost 5000g for the training and 200g to buy. Training for epic flying mounts requires 225 riding skill and upgrades it to 300.
Druids receive Flight Form at level 68 that offers the ability to fly and has a speed equivalent to a normal flying mount. Druids may obtain a quest at level 70 to obtain an epic flight form.
Purchasing riding skill 300 is a requirement for the quest.
Character changes
New spells and talents
In the expansion, Blizzard added five to six new spells for the 60-70 level range to each class in order to round out the classes better. The talent trees were also greatly expanded and
revised. All classes have additional talents leading up to a 41 talent point ability. Players gain new spells at every level from 60-70 instead of every two levels.
Since the Paladin and Shaman classes are no longer unique to either faction, Blizzard added new abilities to each class to make them what they truly feel they should be: Paladins received a
long-awaited spell, Righteous Defense (a long-range, mass taunt-like ability); and Shamans received the spell Bloodlust (a long-cooldown, powerful buff) to complement their DPS and utility
roles.
See each class's respective page for more specific information regarding new spells and talents.
Combat rating system
Main article: Combat rating system
With the release of the Burning Crusade, critical strike, defense, hit rate, spell critical, and dodge stats as well as a new stat, resilience, changed from being absolute percentages to ratings,
with each player level requiring more rating points to achieve the same absolute percentage.
New zones
New starting areas
The blood elves have two new starting areas located in the Eastern Kingdom:
* Eversong Woods — Level 1-10
* Ghostlands — Level 10-20
Similarly, the draenei have two starting zones off the west coast of Kalimdor:
* Azuremyst Isle — Level 1-10
* Bloodmyst Isle — Level 10-20
New continent
The expansion heralds the addition of Outland, an entirely new continent/world, reachable through the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands and portals in several major cities. Interactive maps and
otherwise detailed maps are available for use.
Outland contains the following zones:
* Hellfire Peninsula — Level 58-63
* Zangarmarsh — Level 60-64
* Terokkar Forest — Level 62-65
* Nagrand — Level 64-67
* Blade's Edge Mountains — Level 65-68
* Netherstorm — Level 67-70
* Shadowmoon Valley — Level 67-70
New high-level dungeons
The expansion has added several dungeons, most with separate wings to make runs faster, including some in both in Outland and Azeroth. The dungeons contain a plethora of new
equipment including Tier 4 , Tier 5 and Tier 6 armor pieces.
Azeroth
* Karazhan in Deadwind Pass
* Caverns of Time in Tanaris
* Zul'Aman in Ghostlands (added in patch 2.3)
* Isle of Quel'Danas in Quel'Thalas (added in patch 2.4)
Outland
* Hellfire Citadel, located on the Hellfire Peninsula
* Coilfang Reservoir in the Zangarmarsh
* Auchindoun in the Terokkar Forest
* Tempest Keep outside Netherstorm
* Gruul's Lair in the Blade's Edge Mountains
* Black Temple in the Shadowmoon Valley
Raid and instance changes
All future raids will now have caps not exceeding 25 players (older raids will remain at a 40 player cap, at least for now). This was done to allow a greater number of players to participate in
epic raids, and to allow more flexibility in the design of encounters.
In addition, high level instances have a feature allowing players to have the option to run the instances at two different difficulty levels: Normal and Heroic. This would turn normal level 60-70
instances into much harder level 70 instances with better loot. The final boss of every hard mode instance will drop epic items, and every boss in hard mode instances will drop tokens to get
special gear available in Shattrath. These instances will be marked with a purple portal.
Profession changes
Jewelcrafting and socketed items
Jewelcrafting allows the crafting of rings, trinkets, necklaces and special jewels that can be used in specific items, called Socketed Items.
New specializations and profession abilities
For professions, the expansion adds a new level past Artisan (300) called Master (375). This can be maxed to 390 for gnomish engineers, draenei jewelcrafters, tauren herbalists and blood
elf enchanters.
Characters are also be able to take advantage of new specializations within each profession as well as many new recipes, enchantments, patterns and schematics.
New PvP features
Eye of the Storm
A new battleground called Eye of the Storm is based in Outland. The battleground features a mix of holding territory and capture the flag styles of gameplay.
Each team has 15 members ranging from levels 61-69 and 70, in its own bracket.
Team PvP Arena
Main article: Arena PvP System
Following the introduction of Arena PvP in Patch 2.0.1, level 70 players are able to win prizes in these matches. The rewards for the arena is on par with even the most powerful PvE
rewards. There are currently three Arenas: The Ring of Trials in Nagrand, the Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains, and as of Patch 2.1, the Ruins of Lordaeron, outside Undercity.
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