It’s been a while since I’ve actively posted in this forum, but today I just feel like sharing a few “secrets” not many people are aware of and which can drastically alter your fun in war mode, especially when odds are stacked against you.
Seriously, some of these buffs are NOT to be underestimated.
Disclaimer: These are for the Alliance side only. But the Horde has access to most of them aswell, it’s just that I can’t give you detailed info on some locations for the Horde side. Inquisitor’s Vigor, the Drustvar Haste buff is one of those examples that are Alliance- only. But fret not, Horde has its own neat buffs like the Loa ones. (Altough they are not that strong, since it’s a magic buff and can be purged…)
I hope my brain doesn’t flutter too much writing this and that I have to do 5 edits to clear my thoughts up, but I’ll try my best.
First things first
About me: I’m an all-time destruction only warlock player, since 28th feb. 2008. I just love to absolutely perfect one single character and despite the huge hits in class/ spec “design” since WoD, I still love playing this character.
I’ve got almost 700 days /played now.
BfA is a mixed bag, but I still enjoy most of it. What many might find really weird is that I absolutely love daily quests and world quests. It’s my favourite activity whenever I’m waiting for a queue or when I have nothing to occupy my fingers. Watching something on the second monitor and just doing WQ’s is relaxing.
War Mode just elevates this to a whole new level, since I live for everything PvP, and world quests truly enable some of the best open world PvP moment’s I have missed ever since the glorious days of the Isle of Quel’ Danas.
So you can at least trust me when I say that I know my tricks, and there are a lot of them. Most people quickly overlook things and don’t really pay attention to what’s happening, especially these days. And it’s understandable, because no longer do most people have a lot of time to do these things, and quickly catching up with guides is a good thing.
I do a LOT of world quests. Uh… I mean, every world quest. Still waiting for Blizzard to put their BfA Order Hall resource vendor in:
https://gyazo.com/1a3093c60d26dc8dc2ea692cb99c71a3
I can’t spend them. Not possible.
The buffs
Okay… I think I outdid myself again with that huge intro, sorry for that. I feel like these annoying youtuber’s that have 5 minutes of intro music, rotating logos and dubstep… but anyway.
Numbero uno
The first thing you should consider before going out on your open world adventures is to open the map and go to the broken isles. Click on Aszuna and look if the PvP WQ is active there. It’s only active for 6 hourse, once per day.
If you’re an engineer like me, lucky you! Rechargeable Reaves Battery, teleport mode --> Aszuna and you’re quick to go.
You need to look for the Songflower Serenade, it’s a flower you can click at several locations. It gives you a buff that increases all stats by 15%. And not your base stats, your current ones. The buff lasts through death and can be carried everywhere except arenas, BGs and instances of course.
Songflower Serenade: https://gyazo.com/8ffe18fef0bb04da6cd2d432ea41753d
Number two: Locations.
- Drustvar
Alliance players should know this: Certain mobs grant you a 1 minute buff that can be stacked 20 times, each time you land a killing blow to certain mobs. It’s hard to list all of those that give this buff, but once you pay attention to it you’ll quickly learn which mobs give it.
Note: You absolutely have to land the killing blow in order to gain a stack. Be aware of this. It doesn’t matter if you tagged the mob or if it’s grey.
Falconhurst/ Crimson Forest
This area is quite interesting, since almost all the mobs except the witches and bears give you the aforementioned buff, but more importantly, you can free an NPC from a rune which will buff you a 2 minute duration Bloodlust buff!
Be careful, though. The mob needs around 7 seconds after having clicked the rune to give you the buff. Don’t continue on your way, since even a little bit out of range leads you to miss getting the buff. Also be cautious around mages: It’s a magic effect and can be spellstolen.
- Stormsong Valley
Oh boy… Stormsong Valley. One of the most ridiculous buffs lingers here. It’s so strong that no matter what, I always fly directly to Deadwash whenever I enter that area because the FP is closest to one of these. Rum Flasks! There are many of them located in the western part of Deadwash.
https://gyazo.com/721ef29d1274320f1b38f16befb70859
They give you 50% haste for 3 minutes. There is a drawback, though. You also take 50% increased damage while this buff is active. It’s still ridiculously strong, trust me. This is what it looks like, it’s a tiny yellow flask:
https://gyazo.com/07f7fc810f149eed6183f3fe46939321
Quillboar bombs
There is an NPC in Brennadam called Hobbs who sells impressive stun grenades for Briarback Quills, which can be farmed from mobs nearby. They are quite broken…
Honorable mention: Naga spears
In this same area, you can pick up a spear from one of the racks that sparkle. They give you an extra action button, when pressed it deals 100k+ AoE damage around your character, 5-8yd range.
- Nazmir
Nazmir is probably the most ridiculous zone, since you can stack the most if you know how, and especially during an Assault. I’ll explain those further down, since they merit their own category anyways.
Nazmir has several flowers that are spread out throughout, which grant different buffs. The strongest by far is Kragwa’s Ire. It grants +15% damage done for 5 Minutes. The other ones can be notable aswell, depending on your class. The 10% Mastery for 10 Minutes is nice to have aswell.
Remember that the flowers don’t stack with each other, neither do they with the food buffs you find.
Rage Flask and Woven Idol. These two really pack a punch. I always pair Kragwa’s Ire with the Rage Flask. Woven Idol is only neat if you plan to fight in the area where you can find it, since its buff only lasts a minute. The rage flask lasts for 5, and it increases your Haste by 25%, but also damage taken by 25%.
They look like this: https://gyazo.com/5c18bbd2a393e105be2da3301123e57d
Woven Idol: https://gyazo.com/465891eab39cbc042bb82cace57dce6e
Woven Idol increases Haste by 10%, Damage done by 30% and damage taken by 30% for a minute. Stacks with everything.
Kragwa’s Ire: https://gyazo.com/1ddecce70ca7111fdd290a342a0687ef
How I start my day in Nazmir
Using Spud, this is how I grab my quick Ire and Rage before going to any quest. Doing it like this lets me carry it quite far. When flying comes around, everything in this guide will be miles better, since flying allows you to carry all these buffs even further.
Special note on these particular buffs: They don’t behave normally and you need to be careful when you want to refresh them while still having them active. Usually, all buffs in this game get refreshed to their maximum duration when you “get” them again, but not these in Nazmir. Pay close attention in the video to the moment where I grab the Rage Flask and look at the top right corner for the bloody hand buff icon (Same Icon as a warrior’s Victory Rush), it doesn’t refresh!
You have to manually click the buff away BEFORE clicking on the flask/ flower.
Honorable mention
Flask of Vampiric Mojo. Useless for me since I have no Leech, but VERY VERY strong for classes or people that have Leech. It cannot be stacked with the Rage Flask, but it’s an option for survival. It gives you 120% increased Leech (of your current value) for 5 minutes. Demon Hunter’s will drool…
This concludes the most relevant area specific buffs, but I have a few extra honorable mentions here:
- Drustvar
Near where you can find the runes for the 2 minute Bloodlust, there are also a number of green flasks that give a different buff depending on the day it seems. It’s not worth it most of the time, but if you’re lucky, you can grab a +25% stats buff for 5 minutes.
- Stormsong Valley
I don’t know what the world quest is called again, but it’s the one where you purge the void corruption, near where the Croaker mob is. This buff can only be obtained during this WQ, though. But it’s the strongest stealth detection in the game, stronger than the unveiling eyes in arena. It’s a lantern and there are many, just look out for it. Buff lasts 10 minutes, only in Stormsong Valley.
- Various places
Capacity Draught. Alchemists should’ve seen this, it’s a greenish flask you can pick up near your trainer which gives a 2% boost to versatility, haste, crit and mastery for 10 minutes.
https://gyazo.com/1f40a37501836be1647b36ad6123a861
These can be found in the open world in various places, I know the locations of every single one by heart but it’s not necessary to post every single location here… it’s only 2%, so for min maxers like me. Just know that they can almost always be found during an assault… which leads me to the final point
- Faction Assaults
Oh boy. Some of them enable buffs that are so ridiculous you almost certainly know at least one of those: The Unstable Azerite orb. This is the one that makes you very big and scary, increasing your damage done by 200%, max health by 25%, but you also take damage from this (2-3% of your max HP per second)
But there are others aswell, most notably another rage flask. Sadly, at the time of writing this, there is no active Assault to grab screencaps from, but I’ll edit them in as soon as the next Assault is up.
This Rage flask is a small purple bubbling bowl that gives you 50% damage done for a minute, but also increases damage taken by 50%.
There are also sometimes green flasks which give you a 1 minute buff that increases healing done and taken by 100%.
I left the others out, since most people at least know these, but their impact is small enough. There is a 1 minute spell reflect shield, which gets used up on the first cast reflected, though, and a stone flask that stuns you for 10 seconds but quickly heals you to full HP.
Then there are the weapon racks. It’s always worth it to use it, even if your character looks ugly for 5 minutes. It increases damage done by 10% and reduces damage taken by 10%.
Locations of the Azerite Flare:
-
Stormsong Valley -> Shipwreck to the east of the Deadwash FP. See what I’m getting at? Combine that orb with the 50% haste buff and you can do a 10v1, at least as a ranged, Warlock is beyond disgusting with this.
-
Nazmir -> exactly what the cursor coordinates say:
https://gyazo.com/4a03d5fe3fc6f66b502e8003f09d50fd
No other area has this, so enjoy every Nazmir and Stormsong Valley assault! Also note that the flare is only up if the “Kill 12 Horde/ Alliance” WQ is up there.
Also important to note is the fact that completing the WQ will remove this buff, and you drop it. Another player has 10 seconds to loot it, and if not it returns to the aforementioned spot. The buff lasts a full hour btw.
A common trick is for a player to invite himself into a raid group, making it impossible to progress the quest and just enjoy going on a killing spree. Killing other players also counts towards the quest, so if you don’t want to be THAT dirty, you still have 12 glorious kills.
- Closing thoughts
Oof… again, sorry that this is such a wall of text. But if you had the patience to read through all of this, thank you. I’m quite passionate about this, and I still left a LOT of details out, mainly where all the locations are of the notable buffs. I plan on compiling a video where I record all the places if people want to know further and the request is there, but this will take a lot of time. Also I’m really lazy and never got into video editing… so yeah. I’ll see what I do.
This is ridiculously unfair, but that’s the point. Knowledge is power! And it’s what makes war mode fun. Especially when you know the strengths of your class and how you can use it to your advantage. Warlocks in particular are interesting, and yes VERY strong, since no class has ever scaled this well with stamina in terms of defensive strength than warlock. The more stamina you have, the better.
All your self heals are %HP based, Health Stone, Mortal Coil and most notably: Soul Leech. This is why Songlflower Serenade is so strong, it boosts your max HP by quite a bit. I also use a stamina flask, just because I can. And War Scrolls if I don’t see a lot of Mages, Spriests, Shamans or DHs around.
Usually I run around with 292k HP, at 420 ilvl. With Stam Flask it becomes 301k. With Songlower 345k and with a War Scroll 370k. You see quickly how strong this gets…
Oh and a final word on the Azerite pools. My god do (most) people not know how BONKERS these are. Not only do they give you THIS buff:
https://gyazo.com/b658afca35f7042ef8fb086ef256d098
But the biggest trick is that the hot ticks of this buff are not continous and the server doesn’t check for a reapplication of this. What does this mean, exactly…?
Well, just watch this video and I’ll let you figure the implication out yourself.
I am aware that making it public will probably hot fix this, but it’s been unchecked since BfA launch… and I won’t be sad if they fix it.
Lastly, about Flying: Many are concerned that this will destroy WPvP. Trust me when I say it won’t. To the contrary, it makes it more fun especially because it allows to carry some of these buffs further, and for easier stacking. Nazmir is the most ridiculous zone for this exact reason.
Do you want to know what a non-Dark Soul, non Infernal Chaos Bolt hits an enemy during an Assault there when I have a Woven Idol, Rage Flask, Weapon Rack, Kragwa’s Ire, Cap Draught and Azerite Flare stacked at the same time?
400k. It really hurts.
Flying will not ruin WPvP, yes the Net-o-matic has a high cast time, but it scales with your Haste. It also has over 100yd range, and I was active when Darkshore launched for the pre-event. I had more WPvP fun there than ever before.
Again, thank you for reading if you managed it all!
![:slight_smile:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
![:smiley:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
I miss it SO MUCH, hahaha
Very strange. I’m quite sure that they stack with Priest’s Fortitude - we were even joking that 7 + 10 and we are almost as buffed as Warlocks now.