Hey there peeps! I noticed there’s still a lot of confusion and frustration about the new content. I guess it just wasn’t laid out properly by Blizz, but oh well. Nothing can be done about that now.
Or can it?
I present Andira’s Super Informative Community Guide for Visions, Assaults and All That Kind of Junk!
Before we begin, please note. I will be making some recommendations in the following post. Those are based on my own experiences and may or may not work for you. I wave all liability for you cucking something up because of something I wrote on the internet. My advice is honest and intended to help you, but you follow it at your own risk. Secondly, this guide will only give you information about the stuff that scales your character power. If you are interested in mounts, pets, achievements, collecting stuff etc, you won’t find that here. This guide is meant to give you an explanation on how the PvE gameplay loop works in 8.3 and some pointers on how to get the most out of it.
THE 1000 FEET OVERVIEW
The basic overview for the Visions of N’zoth gameplay loop is that you are supposed to do outdoor content in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where Assaults will constantly be happening. Other than the usual stuff (essences, Artifact Power, gold, War Resources, gear), the outdoor content will award you Coalescing Visions (henceforth abbreviated to CV), a new type of currency. You use CV to run Horrific Visions, which is a new kind of instanced content that can be ran solo or in a party of up to five. Running Horrific Visions grants you, apart from the usual stuff (essences, gear, AP), Corrupted Mementos (henceforth abbreviated to CM), a second currency type, as well as quest items that improve Ashjra’kamas, your Legendary cloak.
THE INTRODUCTION
In order to unlock the Visions of N’zoth core gameplay loop, you must complete a new, quite involved questline - this is the famous 2-3 hour intro quest. You start that by getting over to your faction capital for some cutscenes and then you are off to do stuff with Magni. Along the way, you will be doing instanced scenarios in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Reportedly, some of those scenarios can be skipped on alts once you complete them on at least one character - talk to the people giving you the scenario quests to check if there’s a skip option. In the process of doing the questline, you will also be sent to Uldum and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where you will be tasked with completing Assaults for the first time. The last leg of the questline involves another scenario with Wrathion in Blackrock Mountain and then some test-runs of Horrific Vision instances that are meant to familiarize you with the Sanity mechanic.
ASSAULTS
Assaults are outdoor content that is a bit similar to Legion Invasions of Legion and Faction Assaults in BfA. The main difference is that they are not based around World Quests and are always active. There is one ‘Major Assault’ happening and one ‘Minor Assault’ happening concurrently. At the week of writing, the Major Assault is happening in Vale of Eternal Blossoms, while the Minor Assault is happening in Uldum. You can complete an Assault once for a large reward. You can also kill rares once per assault. You can do daily quests (3-4 will be active in each assault zone) and special events once a day for much smaller rewards. Once per assault you can also put together a key (parts of which are random mob drops) and open a large chest for a large-ish reward. In the Major Assault zone, there will also be a ‘Mini-Vision’ associated with a daily quest that rewards a large chunk of CV.
The Minor Assault resets twice a week - on the weekly reset (Wednesday) and on Saturday. The Major Assault resets weekly on Wednesday and switches to the other zone. So if the current Minor is in Uldum and Major in the Vale, come Saturday there will be a new Minor in Uldum, and then on Wednesday there will be a new Major in Uldum and a new Minor in the Vale. And so on, alternating like that until Shadowlands coems out.
ACTIVITIES YOU DO IN ASSAULTS
These will be in order of the magnitude of rewards, so if you want to optimize your play time each day/week, prioritize the first positions on the list.
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Repelling the Assault
A classic fill-the-bar quest. Just kill whatever and kill whatever to make the bar reach 100%. You then have to kill a named end boss and report to an NPC. The rewards are a Vessel of Horrific Visions (equivalent to 10000 CV) for the Major Assault (doable once a week) and 5500 CV for the Minor Assault (doable twice a week), plus some AP and a chunk of rep for the relevant faction. -
Mini-Vision
In the Major Assault zone, you will find a fleshy eyeball-altar thing. You should be acquinted with that from the introductory questline. Next to the altar will be an NPC with a quest. The quest awards 1000 CV and is doable once per day. REMEMBER TO PICK UP THE QUEST BEFORE YOU INTERACT WITH THE ALTAR since you can’t leave the mini-vision and go back in on the same day. The mobs inside have a chance to drop CV, but the drop rate and drop amount are so negligible you shouldn’t feel obligated to stick around after you’re done with your quest. -
The large cache
In both Assault zones, mobs will occasionally drop key fragments. You need to collect six of them, then you click the stack in your bag to form a key. The key item allows you to open the large cache. There is one in each Assault zone, but they can despawn and respawn in different location. Once you have the key, it’s a good idea to ask in General chat for help in locating the box. The cache awards some War Resources, vendor trash and 500 CV. The key fragments have a quite low drop rate and the box is openable once per Assault so feel free to farm it up over multiple days. -
Daily Quests
Each Assault zone will have 3-4 daily quests marked on your map. These are your usual ‘kill X things’, ‘collect Y drop’ affairs. Each rewards 50 CV and 75 rep for the relevant faction. -
Small caches
There a small treasure chests scattered around either Assault zone. Opening them does not require a key. They contain 10-20 CV, War Resources and vendor trash. It seems to me that there is a limited number of these you can open daily - it felt like after I got around half a dozen they stopped showing up on my map. -
Open events
These are marked with an icon on your minimap. There is about half a dozen of them in either Assault zone in different spots. These range from clicking stuff, killing an elite or solving a puzzle. All players in the vicinity can contribute and get credit. Each awards 10-20 CV and a bit of rep. -
Rares
There are named rare spawn mobs in either Assault zone. Killing one awards a bit of AP, 10-20 CV and a chance at a Black Empire gear token. You can kill each one once per Assault reset.
My recommendation:
Repel every assault every time there is one. Doing the Major and the two Minors per week will provide you with a Vessel of Horrific Visions and 11000 CV, which translates to two Horrific Vision runs. This only requires you to log into the game twice a week for an hour or two and provides the most bang for your time spent.
If you can/want to log in daily, prioritize doing the Mini-Vision. It only takes 5-15mins to complete and provides a big chunk of CV - 7000 a week, which equates to 7/10 of a Horrific Vision run. It will allow you to do an extra Horrific Vision every second week.
If you still can/want to push your CV earnings or you want to speed up your rep gains, do the daily quests, the caches, events and rares. However, be advised that at this point, you will start hitting serious diminishing returns from time spent playing. Doing everything in an Assault zone daily will probably take you 1-2 additional hours of play time for something like 300-500 CV. This means that a month of clearing everything every single day will give you one additional Horrific Vision run. You can certainly do it if you want to push it, but if you don’t have the time or inclination, don’t sweat it. Just doing the two or two-and-a-half Horrific Visions a week will be enough to stay relevant and on the curve with most everyone else.
HORRIFIC VISIONS
The meat and potatoes of the gameplay loop. The idea is that you are doing an instanced scenario in either Stormwind or Orgrimmar where your ultimate goal is defeating the final boss, either Thrall or Alleria, before your Sanity runs out. However, you can do secondary objectives within the scenario and doing so will provide you with more and better rewards. During your into questline, Wrathion will send you into a ‘training’ Horrific Vision. During that scenario, your Sanity will deteriorate rapidly, so just go get the boss ASAP whilst trying to pull as little extra packs as possible. Once you come back, MOTHER will set up an upgrade table for you and Wrathion will give you a quest to go back in for a cloak upgrade.
In order to enter the Horrific Vision scenario you will need a Vessel of Corruption. Those are sold by Wrathion for 10000 CV. Currently there is no other use for CV, so feel free to just get a Vessel and hit the Vision every time you accumulate 10000.
When you go in, you will first land in an antechamber with Wrathion. Your Sanity will not drain in the antechamber. Talking to Wrathion will allow you to see a map of the Horrific Vision, detailing additional objectives, Madness effects (these are essentially like M+ affixes and different objective zones will have different affixes) etc. You can take your time and plan your route. Once you are ready, you can talk to Wrathion to launch the scenario.
UPGRADE CONSOLE AND SANITY ORBS
The upgrade console set up by MOTHER will allow you to exhange Corrupted Mementos you get from Horrific Visions for upgrades that will allow you to last longer in a Vision and kill stuff easier. The first and most important upgrade you should immediately unlock are Sanity Orbs. This upgrade gives you a new action button whenever you are in a Horrific Vision, with three charges per run. Hitting that button will deploy a Titan orb that will restore your Sanity to full over several seconds. This will allow you more time to explore the vision, kill more stuff and complete additional objectives. One VERY IMPORTANT note about the orbs is that they are only usable OUT OF COMBAT. This means that when you are low on Sanity, you will have to plan your pulls carefully and stay on your toes. If something goes pear-shaped, like you miss an interrupt and get stunned in bad or you body pull an additional patrol, you might not be able to restore your sanity in time.
Another important caveat: there have been reports of people going for additional objectives within the Vision and then getting a ‘stuck in combat’ bug whilst clearing it, making them unable to use orbs and fail their run. Personally I have not encountered this problem and it is currently unknown what precisely causes it. Until this issue is resolved, you are doing additional objectives AT YOUR OWN RISK.
FINAL BOSS
The final boss of a Horrific Vision is either Alleria or Thrall and the live servers have only had the latter thus far. The final boss has a couple fairly easy mechanics to contend with and shouldn’t pose any real threat unless you are seriously undergeared and/or unable to not stand in bad. Defeating the boss immedietely ends the scenario. This means that if you want to go for additional objectives or more mob kills, you need to do that before you do the final boss. This introduces a risk/reward element to the entire excercise, since if you die or run out of sanity, you will fail the scenario and won’t get your rewards!
Note that while all the trash in the Horrific Vision is not lootable, killing every pack provides a handful of additional CM. This means that even if you are not trying for an additional objective zone, it’s a good idea to clear everything around the final boss room, since that’s a fairly low-risk proposition that will net you some additional CM.
ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES
Within the Vision, you can stray off the path and go into the different city districts. Within you will find more challenging enemies and additional objectives. Completing the objective and killing the zone boss will grant you more CM after finishing the Vision. It will also give you Essence progress tokens. Be advised that additional objective areas will be more challenging due to having stronger enemies, a different Madness affix and will drain your Sanity quicker. Also, for each additional objective area you clear, the Final Boss will be stronger and more resilient and will also gain an additional mechanic that you will have to contend with.
CLOAK UPGRADES
Finishing a Vision while on a quest from Wrathion will reward you with either a book or pages from a book. You turn those in to Wrathion to rceaive cloak upgrades. Ashja’kamas can be upgrades up to Rank 15. Every rank increases its Item Level, provides more Corruption Resistence (allowing you to wear more Corrupted gear without suffering the adverse effects) and provides more resistance to Sanity drain in Visions.
CORRUPTED MEMENTOS
This is a currency reward from Horrific Visions. Just killing the end boss grants you around 100 CM. You get additional CM by killing more trash and completing additional objectives. CM can be used to advance your upgrades with the MOTHER titan console to make you last longer in subsequent runs. Large quantities of CM can be turned in with Wrathion for cosmetic rewards or a Gouged Eye, an item that will add a socket to one of your gear pieces.
FAILING VISIONS AND FALLING BEHIND
There has been a lot of confusion and anxiety about this. Many content creators have been telling people for weeks that failing a Vision puts you permanently behind everyone else and that sure sounds scary. However, that is not true given how the system works. To be perfectly clear: FAILING A HORRIFIC VISION DOES NOT PUT YOUR CHARACTER PERMANENTLY BEHIND on the cloak upgrade progression. Anyone who tells you otherwise does not understand how the system works.
When you fail a vision, you will not get the cloak upgrade, that is true. In week one of the patch, most people will probably get two to four upgrades, depending how hard they grind for CV. This means that next reset, your average Joe will be Rank 4 or Rank 5, while min-maxers might be Rank 6. Next reset is when the magic happens. During week two of the patch, the cloak will be hard capped at Rank 7. After you reach Rank 7, Wrathion will refuse to give you a quest to rank it up further. Essentially, for people that maxed out their cloak the previous week, any Vision beyond the first will not award a cloak upgrade. However, people that have not yet reached Rank 7 will continue receiving upgrade quests during week two. So if you failed a run or two, or were just lazy and your cloak is, say, at level 4, if you can get 30000 CV in week two and run three succesful Visions, you will be Rank 7 - same as the people that did everything ‘correctly’.
This will continue like that in subsequent weeks. So in Week three of the patch the cloak will be hard capped to Rank 8. Rank 9 for the next week. And so on until we hit Rank 15. Therefore, if you fail/miss a Vision run, you WILL NOT be PERMANENTLY behind - you will only be behind until you can catch up to the rank up curve in the next week or two.
GEAR REWARDS AND MASKS
The first Horrific Vision you complete in a week will award you a piece of Corrupted gear for your spec. This piece starts out at ilvl 420, but can be upgraded.
During a Horrific Vision, if you manage to clear ALL additional objectives and successfuly defeat the final boss, you will be awarded a Mask. Masks can be used in future Horrific Vision runs in the antechamber you start out with. Each Mask you use makes the enemies tougher and makes them deal more damage (kinda like Mythic + mob scaling). If you complete that harded Vision, the piece of gear you get will be upgraded by 10 item levels for every Mask you used, up to a maximum of ilvl 470.
MY RECOMMENDATIONS
For the first week, stick to just defeating the end boss, maybe clearing the trash around him if you feel like it. Get a feel for how the Vision works, get some Upgrades going, familiarize yourself with the content. If you really want to, a single additional objective is perfectly doable if you are geared and skilled enough - I’d say anyone with Heroic raid experience and/or anyone that can comfortably do Mythic +8-10 dungeons will have no problem with completing the vision with an additional objective. For people that don’t feel so confident, take it slow and build up your Corrupted Memento upgrades. There is an upgrade fairly early on that revives you once per Vision if you die/go insane. This is essentially a get-out-of-jail-free-card if you make a boo boo or run into the combat bug. For people anxious about failing, I’d wait to get that upgrade before trying additional objectives.
That being said, when I first said ‘eff it, I’m going for it’ and turned the bend to the Valley of Speakers, doing that knowing that there is a risk involved and not knowing what kind of objective/boss fight I will end up seeing there (I did not spoil myself with PTR) was the most fun I had with solo content in the game since the Mage Tower. So there’s that.
Thank you for reading. I hope this guide/pointers/stream of consciousness will be helpful for people still confused about Assaults and Visions or people still anxious about screwing up their stuff in the Vision. Feel free to ask if anything was unclear or you have additional info to offer, like I said, I have not done any PTR stuff so I am still figuring this stuff up myself.
