Aberrus the Shadowed Crucible
Release Dates and Location
Delve into the depths of Neltharion’s vault and bring to light the secrets that live within together with Aberrus boost from WowVendor!
The new raid called Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible is located in Zarelek Cavern (48.46; 10.35), a new underground zone added to Ohn’ahran Plains.
The doors will open together with the start of Dragonflight Season 2 on May 9–10 (depending on your region), 2023. The dark corridors and halls await brave heroes and adventurers to reveal the truth about Neltharion’s experiments. What does this mean for Drachtyr? What does that mean for Primalists? What does that mean for Azeroth? Only those strong enough to fight through this laboratory will find those answers.
Encounters
Aside from new bits of lore and story, the raid provides new thrilling encounters with fearsome enemies. As always, they are available in Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties on release. The LFG versions will come in four separate wings. The first wing will be released together with the raid, while the second one — two weeks later, around May 22. This means the 3rd and 4th wings will be out on the week of June 5 and June 19 respectively. Cross-faction will be available from the start as well.
Aberrus has 9 encounters in total:
- Kazzara, the Hellforged
- Amalgamation Chamber (A)
- The Forgotten Experiments (A)
- Assault on the Zaqali (B)
- Rashok, the Elder (B)
- Zskarn, the Vigilant Steward
- Magmorax
- Echo of Neltharion
- Scalecommander Sarkareth
To clear the raid you need to defeat only 7 out of these. As in the previous raid, there is a branching path (marked by A and B in the list). Meaning after the Kazzara fight, players have to choose which path they want to take — fight more twisted experiments (route A) or test their mettle against ruthless Zaqali warband and their Elder.
Loot and Rewards
As for the loot and other rewards you can get from these encounters, the item level of drops depends on the difficulty. LFG drops iLv 402–411, Normal — 415–424, Heroic 428–437, Mythic 441–450.
As for the loot itself, you can expect new class tier sets, as well as some specific trinkets. Each one is available for a particular selection of classes. For example, Neltharion’s voice of Chaos is designed for Demon Hunter, Warrior, Paladin, Mage, and Evoker. The voice grants them a chance to get extra Primary stat when they deal damage with AoE spells and abilities. Other classes receive similar trinkets, with their own conditions for the effect proc.
As for the aforementioned class tier sets, each class received one. Each has several color variations — provided by sets from various difficulties of the raid, as well as from PvP. As for their effect… That is a different topic that deserves another entire article. To make it short, the player base reaction to the initial release on PTR was mostly negative. A small number of specs got powerful effects, while others had to deal with mediocre or straight horrendous bonuses. Some hardcore raiders and content creators went as far as calling these “war crimes”. A lot of feedback was given to Blizzard, so we hope changes will be made on release. This way, every spec can get a meaningful effect for their gear that is fun to play with.
We hope this short overview helped you to learn more about Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. Gather together with your friends, guild members, or other adventurers of Azeroth. Whatever you do, do not forget to have fun doing so! See you all fighting your way through the depths of Aberrus!
