BT, Hyjal, S3 release dates and catch up features

We're excited to announce the third big content release — Black Temple, The Battle for Mount Hyjal and Arena Season 3 are just around the corner!

Upcoming content will be released over a three week period, starting with Battle for Mount Hyjal 31.07 (17:00 server time), Season 3 on 08.08 (00:00 server time) and The Black Temple on 23.08 (16:00 server time).

The Battle for Mount Hyjal will also come with a small change. Once your raid has reached the boss wave you'll be able to attempt the encounter repeatedly after wipes without having to re-clear previous waves.

With the release of Season 3 you'll also be able to obtain the epic PvP trinket (e.g. Medallion of the Horde) as well as Battlemaster trinkets (e.g. Battlemaster's Perseverance) and Badge of Justice cloaks (e.g. Cloak of Arcane Alacrity).

Season 2 will end on the 07.08 (23:59 server time) with the same title and rewards distribution and rules as the previous season. You can find the details at the bottom of this page.
We're also preparing to run another arena tournament in the near future.

Additionally we're introducing more catch up features:

PvP

All honor gains will be increased by a 100% (x2)!
In addition to that we're introducing bonus honor during weekends. Every Friday evening (18:00 server time) to Monday morning (10:00 server time) honor gains will be increased by an additional 100% (x3). The bonuses will become active with the next server update.

Arena points will continue to be distributed twice a week (Sunday and Wednesday, 06:00 server time). As is tradition arena points will be wiped when Season 3 starts and you'll keep all of your honor points.

Players will be able to obtain Arena Season 2 set pieces for Honor, Arena Season 2 weapons for a discounted arena points price and Arena Season 1 weapons for honor points.

PvE

With the release of Hyjal, heroic keys will be available to players at Honored reputation with the respective factions.

Attunements for Karazhan, Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye will no longer be required. Players will also be able to skip to the last bosses of T5 without killing the earlier ones.

All bosses in T4 and T5 will drop 3 tier tokens.


The rewards for placing high on the arena ladder are as follows (for both 2v2 and 3v3 brackets):

Rank 1 — Merciless Gladiator title and a Merciless Nether Drake.

Ranks 2 and 3 — Gladiator title and a Merciless Nether Drake.

Ranks 4 and 5 — Gladiator title.

Ranks 6 to 10 — Duelist title.

Ranks 11 to 20 — Rival title.

Ranks 21 to 30 — Challenger title.

Please note that in order to be eligible for the rewards you'll need to be in at least 70% of the team's total games played and your personal rating needs to be within 100 rating of the team's rating. Characters in contention for arena titles which are not played by their actual active owners will not be eligible for receiving the title at the end of the season. Additionally, Rank 1 Merciless Gladiator titles will persist through all seasons while the other ones will expire with Season 3 ending.