WoW Classic WotLK: 7 things to look forward to in the next expansion

Now that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic has reached the final fifth phase, it's time to start thinking about the future. You know what that means, it's time to start thinking about WoW Classic Wrath of the Lich King!

With the Lich King as its icon, the WotLK expansion brought tons of new players to the World of Warcraft franchise. Not only was this the first time many got to experience the longstanding MMORPG but it was also a massive fan-favorite expansion in the long series in terms of quality.

That's why we've compiled a list of what WoW Classic players can look forward to from WoW Classic WotLK.

UPDATED - Faction Changing Confirmed for WotLK Classic

After much deliberation from Blizzard's side, both Faction changes and Race changes will be available for WoW Classic WotLK.

This comes after the devs initially planned to not offer Faction changing as their eyes "it removed some of that fantasy feeling of having dramatically different physical attributes that affect" player gameplay.

It's worth noting that Faction changing, and Race changing as well, will not be available as soon as the expansion releases in September.

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First Hero Class: Death Knight

As the game's first hero class, the Death Knight truly took on the embodiment of the game's class fantasy. Not only that but also was the game's first new class overall, bringing on an entirely new experience.

Credit: Blizzard Entertainment

With frost, unholy, and blood magic at their command, Death Knights brought a refreshing take to classes in WoW, add the fact that they also had more modernized spells in Death Grip and their old Raise Ally ability, the class was truly special at the time and is largely considered the best hero class ever released.

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The Introduction of Northrend

As opposed to Azeroth's heroes seeing a new world in the Outlands back during TBC, they got to see a new part of Azeroth with the exploration of Northrend.

With a total of ten zones to explore, this was the first time player's experiences in Azeroth reached beyond Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, giving players a chance to explore forgotten lands, meet new races, factions, and more.

The Lich King becomes the most iconic WoW character of all time

As undoubtedly the most iconic face in the franchise, the Lich King or Arthas, was part of the reason the expansion got as much attention as it did. He quickly became the poster boy of the game and is still a huge part of the game today.

A Paladin turned Death Knight that with the power of the Helm of Damnation and Frostmourne would stop at nothing to rule the world, made him the first true bad guy in WoW, and players loved it.

The Barbershop offers first-ever character customization

Apart from the gear they wore, which oftentimes looked mismatched until they got a tier or PvP set on, players in WoW didn't have much of a choice when it came to character customization during WoW's earlier years. However once WotLK was released, that changed.

With the barbershop, players got to add a bit more flavor to their character, albeit in the form of changing hair and small features such as piercings. It allowed players to break the monotony of having the character be the same all the time, and it also saved them some cash as they didn't have to pay for character customizations anymore.

It was a crucial element in the game as in the later years, it would be used for even more customizations and freedoms.

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Dalaran becomes a major city

Like Shattrath before it, Dalaran became WoW players' next central hub. The now known as the "floating city" got its name after it left Lordamere Lake and flew its way over Crystalong Forest in order to fight the Lich King's forces.

Credit: Blizzard Entertainment

Within it are tons of NPCs, ranging from PvP and PvE vendors to the likes of the Kirin Tor council that all serve as an important part of the expansion.

Raids get a new Heroic difficulty

Gone were the days of 40-man raids and in came a harder difficulty for raids. This allowed for players to perform the same raid various times in various difficulties.

Apart from the usual Normal difficulty which was considered the base and could be done with a group of either 10 or 25 players, now there was a new step above. Keeping the 10 or 25 players in mind, Heroic mode gave that extra bit of toughness to bosses, making them even more challenging.

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Buffs become raid-wide

Although a bit niche compared to other features originally introduced in WotLK, came the change of buffs becoming raid-wide, more specifically buffs that came from the likes of Shamans and the like.

This made it so that instead of a raid needing to have multiple shamans in multiple parties to benefit the likes of melee, now the raid group could just do with one, allowing a better group composition.