World of Warcraft Shows Off New Plunderstorm Abilities and Features

World of Warcraft's Plunderstorm Returns with Enhanced Features and Rewards

Plunderstorm, World of Warcraft's pirate-themed battle royale, has returned, bringing with it a host of new features and quality-of-life improvements. While the end date remains unannounced, players can anticipate at least a month of high-seas action. This iteration builds upon the original, offering a revamped experience.

The Arathi Highlands battlefield boasts new points of interest and respawning non-elite enemies, ensuring a constant supply of loot. Fast travel horses expedite traversal, allowing players to quickly reach chests, elite enemies, and opponents. A new map feature displays zone threat levels based on combat frequency, and players can now select their starting deployment zone.

New Plunderstorm Features:

• Revamped Arathi Highlands with new points of interest.
• Respawning non-elite enemies.
• Fast travel horses for quicker map navigation.
• Zone threat indicators on the map for strategic planning.
• Selectable deployment zones for customized gameplay.
• Practice Lobby for ability testing, keybinding adjustments, and socializing.
• Plunderstore offering new and returning rewards, accessible from the Practice Lobby, login screen, and the retail WoW PvP interface.
• Access to the game mode while playing World of Warcraft: The War Within characters.

New Abilities:

The Plunderstore offers a selection of new abilities:

• Offensive:

  • Aura of Zealotry: Passively increases allied movement speed and provides a consecrated area damaging enemies periodically. While in the consecrated area, players gain enhanced movement speed and melee attack power.
  • Celestial Barrage: A long-range, chargeable moonbeam attack.

• Utility:

  • Call Galefeather: Summons an eagle to knock back enemies.
  • Void Tear: Creates a Void mark; recasting instantly teleports the player to the mark, damaging and slowing nearby enemies. The recast is instantaneous even while casting other spells.

Ability Balance Changes:

Existing spell cooldowns have been adjusted for improved balance:

• Earthbreaker: Cooldown reduced by 2 seconds at all ranks.
• Slicing Winds: Cooldown increased by 2 seconds at all ranks.
• Star Bomb: Cooldown reduced by 2 seconds at all ranks.
• Storm Archon: Cooldown reduced by 2 seconds at all ranks.
• Toxic Smackerel: Cooldown increased by 1.5 seconds at all ranks.

The absence of the three-person Trios mode from this iteration is notable. Whether this omission is temporary remains to be seen. Overall, Plunderstorm's return offers a refined and engaging battle royale experience for World of Warcraft players.