What to Expect from WoW Patch 12.1: Curse of Ula'tek

Midnight has had an awesome launch so far. I have put a disgusting amount of time into my main, and I believe I am sitting somewhere north of 500 hours on my Protection Warrior at level 90 alone.

As Season 1 has started dying down, I have been getting more and more hyped for 12.1, especially after the announcement.

Curse of Ula'tek looks like Blizzard is continuing with the formula that has worked since the beginning of the Worldsoul Saga. We are getting a new zone, more Delves, a new dungeon, a new raid, a fresh Mythic Plus season, new outdoor activities, housing updates, and a bunch of quality-of-life changes. The announcement also introduced Lairs, which take the normal patch-zone world bosses and turn them into instanced fights with multiple difficulty levels.

There is a lot coming with this patch, but the part that has me most excited is where we are going and the story Blizzard is choosing to tell.

I absolutely love that we are sticking around for a more localized story with the Amani trolls.

Blizzard going back and hanging out in the old world has been one of my favorite parts of Midnight. To be honest, that was something I struggled with during expansions like Dragonflight and The War Within.

There is just something about going back to Azeroth proper, exploring these zones again, and seeing them expanded upon. These places already have history. I have memories attached to them. The characters and conflicts feel connected to the world I have been playing in for years.

Curse of Ula'tek takes us to the Coiled Isle and continues the story surrounding Zul'jan, Zul'jarra, the Amani, and Ula'tek. The zone includes the Vaults of Atal'Ulek, a zone-specific talent tree, Curse Surges, new outdoor activities, and even cursed fishing because apparently regular fishing was not dangerous enough.

I like this direction for the Worldsoul Saga. The story can still be part of something much larger without every patch immediately sending us through another portal into a place we have never heard of.

The Amani have been around forever, and there is still a ton Blizzard can do with them. I am much more interested in spending time with their culture, history, and internal conflicts than showing up, killing another troll warlord, and taking their bear mount.

Although, to be clear, I will still take the bear mount.

One of the more interesting additions in 12.1 is Lairs.

These are basically instanced world bosses with multiple difficulty levels. The higher difficulties are designed for groups of 15 to 25 players and scale all the way up to flexible Mythic. Instead of flying into a patch zone, joining a raid group, and watching a world boss die before you figure out which direction it is facing, Blizzard can make these into actual encounters.

I really like the idea.

World bosses have been throwaway content for a long time. You show up, hit something for thirty seconds, get 43 gold, and leave. Maybe you get a piece of gear during the first week of the patch. After that, you are mostly there because the weekly quest told you to go stand in the pile.

Lairs give Blizzard more room to make those fights meaningful. The different difficulties also let players choose how much they want to engage with them.

With 12.0.7, we started seeing Blizzard experiment more with flexible Mythic raid content. Lairs feel like the next step in that experiment.

Ion has also discussed Blizzard looking at the advantages and problems of flexible Mythic, along with the possibility of changing Mythic lockouts in the future. I personally hope we eventually see personal Mythic lockouts and flexible Mythic once the Hall of Fame has closed.

I think that would be a fair compromise.

I understand that it could change how boosting works. There could be a trickle-down effect for other parts of the game. I still do not think that subset of the player base should dictate changes that could help a huge number of Heroic raiders move into Mythic content.

There are plenty of players who can clear Heroic and probably kill several Mythic bosses. The roster requirements and lockout system stop a lot of them before the difficulty ever does.

Let the race happen. Let the Hall of Fame close. Then open things up and allow more people to experience the content.

Blizzard has already started testing parts of this idea. I am really interested to see how players respond to Lairs because that response could shape what Mythic raiding looks like in the future.

Speaking of massive changes, Blizzard is changing how raid rewards work in the Great Vault, and I could not be more excited.

Under the current PTR setup, raiding will provide the next difficulty tier in your Vault. If you complete LFR, you get Normal gear. Normal gives Heroic gear. Heroic gives Mythic gear.

That finally gives raiding some level of parity with Mythic Plus.

There has been a lot of stagnation around Heroic raiding. Hero-track gear can be obtained from so many different sources that after a while you start asking why you are even doing the raid.

The answer might be that you enjoy raiding, which is great. I enjoy raiding too. The progression rewards still matter.

If you were not planning to move into Mythic raiding, Mythic Plus became the main way to continue gearing your character. Running keys also comes with a much lower organizational demand than maintaining a Mythic raid roster.

This change means Heroic raiders can keep progressing through the content they already enjoy.

Bonus rolls are also staying, and the current PTR version follows the same next-tier reward structure. A Heroic boss can give a Mythic item through the bonus-roll system.

That is a massive improvement for players who primarily raid.

To offset the additional Mythic gear coming from Heroic Vaults and bonus rolls, Mythic raiding is getting access to items that can go beyond the normal 6/6 Mythic upgrade level.

From what I understand, those higher item-level drops are limited to rare items from the later bosses of the raid. Your Mythic Vault rewards will still cap at the normal 6/6 Mythic level.

I think that is an awesome compromise.

Heroic raiders can get Mythic gear through their Vault and bonus rolls. Mythic raiders still have exclusive access to the absolute highest item-level versions of certain pieces.

I have seen plenty of world-first raiders who seem completely fine with the change. If the people who are going to reach and clear that content first are okay with it, I think the rest of us will probably survive.

The exact numbers may move around during the PTR, but the overall direction is good. Raid gear should feel rewarding again.

We are also getting a new Mythic Plus season.

Twitter immediately started freaking out because Blizzard is bringing back some of the more notorious dungeons from Mythic Plus history.

I understand the reaction. Some of those dungeons have earned their reputation.

I also think it is worth remembering that Blizzard has been doing a lot of work when older dungeons return. Layouts change. Trash changes. Mechanics get updated. Timers get adjusted. Sometimes the version that comes back feels very different from the dungeon people remember hating.

Algeth'ar Academy ended up being a pretty decent dungeon, even though people were freaking out about it before the season started.

I am hesitant to declare the Season 2 pool a disaster before we have played the updated versions. Some of these could end up being the best dungeons of the season.

I am also just happy that I will never have to walk into Nexus Point again, at least for the foreseeable future.

If it returns in Season 3, I might delete my account.

The new raid is called the Venomous Abyss. It has eight bosses and ends with Ula'tek, who is a massive five-headed serpent because one head apparently was not enough.

We are also getting a new three-boss dungeon called the Altar of Fangs. Both are heavily built around the snake, venom, and Amani themes of the patch.

I am going to be honest with you guys. I have not done any dungeon or raid testing.

I do not want to be super spoiled, so you are not going to get much inside information from me about the encounters themselves. If you are interested in testing those fights, the PTR is there.

I have mostly been going in to check out the gear changes, try my new rotation, and look at all the transmogs.

The eight-boss raid size feels good to me. It is enough content to support a full season without turning the raid into something that takes six hours to pug every week.

The three-boss dungeon could also be great for Mythic Plus. That is going to depend heavily on how much trash Blizzard crams between those three bosses, because we have all seen how that game works.

One of the biggest gearing changes in 12.1 is how the Catalyst works.

Currently, converting an item into tier gear replaces it with the predetermined tier item. That can change the secondary stats and remove special effects from the original piece.

In 12.1, the Catalyst will retain the stats and cantrips of the item you already have.

That is huge.

It also has a major effect on PvP players. They will be able to convert an item into tier without losing the Versatility that was already on it.

On the PvE side, we will no longer have to accept whatever stat combination Blizzard decided to put on every tier slot.

I still do not understand why Season 1 had so much Versatility. It was all over world drops, and plenty of tier pieces had it too. For a lot of classes, it is the least desirable secondary stat.

The new Catalyst lets you look through the Mythic Plus pool, raid drops, and other sources to find the version of an item with the stats or cantrip you want. Once you get it, you can convert that item and keep those properties while gaining your tier bonus.

That opens up actual chase items.

As someone who is a huge ARPG fan, I love this direction.

Games like Path of Exile 2 give you reasons to keep hunting for small upgrades. You might already have a good item, but there is still a version with slightly better rolls, a stronger effect, or the exact combination your build needs.

WoW struggles with that once your character gets close to finished.

You get your tier set. You fill your important slots. You upgrade everything. Eventually, the only obvious path left for a midcore player is to jump onto a bunch of alts.

I am going to be honest, homie. I am not about that life.

I have put more than 500 hours into one character at level 90. I think we have established how I prefer to play this game.

The Catalyst change gives me a reason to keep looking at loot. Maybe the item I already have is good. Maybe another dungeon drops the same slot with better stats and a cantrip I want. Now that drop can become my tier piece instead of sitting in my bags because converting it would destroy the reason I wanted it.

That adds customization and replayability.

There may be some awkwardness early in the season when you are trying to finish your four-piece and converting whatever gear you can find. I can live with that.

Once you finally get the item you have been hunting for, there is this explosion of dopamine. It is one of the coolest fucking experiences in video games.

WoW could use more of that.

New dungeons and raids also mean new Delves.

The patch is adding several snake and poison-themed Delves on the Coiled Isle, along with a new Nemesis encounter connected to Venomfalls Deep.

I think Delves have been some of the best content Blizzard has added to WoW in forever.

They give solo players and small groups meaningful content that does not require building a full dungeon or raid group. They are also easy to fit into whatever amount of time you have.

I hope Blizzard eventually cranks up the difficulty of Delves or Delve bosses enough that they can offer some path toward Mythic gear.

The easiest way to balance that could be through weaker stat distributions. Delve gear already tends to feel like it is itemized that way. You could let players obtain higher item-level pieces without making those pieces the best possible items for every form of content.

Maybe that is unnecessary. Maybe it is not something the larger player base even wants.

Blizzard has already made it much easier to obtain all of your class tier appearances through Crests, which was another great decision. Delves do not necessarily need to become another mandatory gearing track.

I still think there is room for truly difficult solo and small-group content with rewards that match the effort.

Housing is getting several updates in 12.1, including blueprints that can save, export, and import full houses, exteriors, or individual rooms. Players will also be able to place pets in their homes, and Blizzard is adding more Neighborhood Endeavors.

I have not done much with housing yet because several of the features I am most interested in are still coming.

Blueprints are the big one for me.

Being able to copy an entire room, exterior, or house is going to make the system much easier to approach. I am also excited to see what the community does with it.

Path of Exile has websites where players share hideout layouts. You find a design you like, import it, and then hunt down the pieces you need to build it.

WoW appears to be heading in a similar direction.

Maybe you are terrible at building. Someone else may have already made the perfect house for you. You can import their blueprint, see what decorations you need, and slowly put it together yourself.

The way I plan to use the system is to build one room at a time and save each room separately.

I can start fresh, build out individual spaces, and avoid worrying about how everything connects until I am ready to put the full house together. Then I can work on hallways, stairs, and whatever other bullshit I created for myself.

That makes the whole process feel a lot less overwhelming.

I think blueprints are going to be great for the housing community as a whole. People are going to share layouts, remix other people's rooms, and probably create entire websites and Discord servers around collecting them.

There is also a lot happening outside the major raid, dungeon, and gearing changes.

The Coiled Isle includes the Vaults of Atal'Ulek, Curse Surges that spawn elite enemies, a zone talent tree, new Prey targets, Arcantina quests, cursed fishing, rares, collectibles, and the usual mountain of mounts, pets, gear, transmog, and housing decorations.

Blizzard is also updating the Cooldown Manager and ping system, adding a Players vs. Bots option for Arena, allowing pets inside housing, and making another round of class and UI changes.

I do not have a strong opinion on every one of those yet.

The Cooldown Manager still needs work, and I am obviously going to be watching what changes there. I also think Arena bots could be useful for players who want to understand the basic flow of PvP without immediately getting flattened by people who have been playing the same comp for fifteen years.

The outdoor content looks promising. A lot of that will come down to reward structure and how often Blizzard expects us to repeat it.

A patch zone can have a huge number of activities and still feel dead after a month if the rewards and progression stop giving players a reason to show up.

The overall package looks strong, though. Blizzard seems to be taking the things that worked during Midnight's launch and expanding them instead of throwing everything away and starting over.

Blizzard has not officially announced the live date yet.

If I had to put money on it, I would say August 11.

That is a guess based on where we are in the season, the current PTR cycle, and when the announcement happened. Blizzard could prove me completely wrong tomorrow.

Either way, I am ready.

Midnight has had an awesome first season. I have gotten a disgusting amount of playtime out of it, and 12.1 looks like it is giving me plenty of reasons to keep going.

The localized Amani story looks great. The gearing changes are some of the most exciting changes in the patch. Lairs could open the door for larger raid changes later. The Catalyst update gives us real items to chase. Delves and housing continue to grow instead of being left behind after launch.

I am ready to get into the new season.

See you guys in raid.