The gang is back to talk about all the latest news in World of Warcraft including the alpha for Shadowlands that is now live! But first, Rei talks about the Order of Corrupted Souls guild's success in defeating Heroic Nya'lotha. They discuss how they had to use puggers to replace some missing regular roster raiders. They also ran some horrific visions. Nick brings up the live alpha and they talk a little about when Shadowlands may release, as Eric is concerned that we could be in for another year of the final raid. Meanwihle, he is excited to finally be able to drop his death knight tank and instead focus upon other classes, although he does not know which class he should play. Nick suggests druid after pointing out he hasn't played a druid in quite some time.

Nick brings up the Covenant Ability debate that has been enraging the community of late. Players are concerned that Blizzard will not be able to properly balance the Covenant Abilities, and that switching Covenants will be too difficult a process, or that players will be forced to choose a Convenant based on the ability and not based on other factors like style or aesthetics or other rewards. Ion did an interview where he mentioned that there will be other powers from the Covenant that are not just the ability, so they will have many points to balance from, but players are still concerned. History suggests Blizzard may cave on this decision at some point.

Also, in the news, Blizzard shared a ton of info about Shadowlands in advance of the alpha going public. Some classic character transfers are now free. And Blizzcon 2020 is currently planned to happen, but we do not have a date yet.

Finally, Nick looks back at episode #56, when talent swapping had the community upset during an expansion beta.

Thank you for listening to WoW! Talk! Our next live show is scheduled for 4/26/19 at 10:30 pm E at twitch.tvmashthosebuttons. For any scheduling updates, please follow us on twitter @wowtalkmtb. Send any emails about your thoughts or feedback on to [email protected].

Website: mashthosebuttons.com

Discord: mash.gg/discord