WoW Season of Mastery brings the Ahn’Qiraj war effort, with C’Thun restored to its original “terrible” form

World of Warcraft Classic Season of the Championship has a brand new update bringing The Ahn’Qiraj War Efort to Special Mode today at 3pm PDT, along with some content adjustments. There are some tweaks to make some encounters harder and others easier, as well as economic changes to suit the mode, and more.

The centerpiece is of course The Ahn’Qiraj War Effort, with The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj and The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. Changes in content are consistent with what the Season of the Championship represents faster progression with challenge, but also some differentiation to keep things interesting. With that in mind, the war effort now requires half the total resources as before. There is also a reduction in the time before auto-completion of War Effort Objectives begins. The gates will open on the realms within a month of the start of the event.

The Temple has a few surprises in store, with some of the most significant challenges coming from difficulty adjustments. There are also helpful elements, like the quicksand piles that you’ll find throughout, which grant stackable movement speed bonuses to nearby players when interacting with them. Additional challenges are opened and the reputation reward for the Spawn of Nozdormu quest The Hand of the Righteous is now doubled.

But if you are in Season of the Championship, you are there for the challenge. And they bring it. Additional challenges will be available after defeating Skeram and interacting with the Prophecy of Chaos.” However, the real differences will be in the boss encounters. The baseline for Fankriss the Unyielding hasn’t received any new mechanics, there’s a tweak that means you “need to use the existing mechanics in a much more meaningful way,” according to the patch notes, a change that was made due to how this encounter became in the original not considered as difficult as others.

Perhaps the most challenging and exciting for those hungry for a challenge is the increased difficulty for C’thun. He has been “restored to his original, most terrifying form” (aka Pre-Nerf).

For more information, see World of Warcraft.