---
title: 'Blizzard Are FINALLY Fixing Midnight''s Annoying Problems'
source: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-6h9uH7uzs'
video_id: 'r-6h9uH7uzs'
date: 2026-06-26
duration_sec: 0
---

# Blizzard Are FINALLY Fixing Midnight's Annoying Problems

> Source: [Blizzard Are FINALLY Fixing Midnight's Annoying Problems](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-6h9uH7uzs)

## Summary



## Transcript

12.1 isn't a very flashy patch. There's
no new groundbreaking feature and
story-wise in a way we're not even
moving that far forward. But now that
we've seen everything, it's actually
huge looking and really quite unique.
And what it ultimately means is that if
what Midnight fundamentally does is no
longer for you, I don't think this patch
will completely change that. But
instead, I see the curse of all that act
to be a fixer patch. Basically one for
people who broadly have enjoyed Midnight
but want it a little bit more. The good
news in that front is 12.1 is going to
make our lives a hell of a lot better.
So, we've seen the wild cast and the
follow-up posts and ultimately it's
clear that some teams at Blizzard locked
in pretty hard over the last 6 months,
especially the UI team. But also the
world content team, the housing team,
rewards team and even their social team.
There's a lot going on, so here is
everything that we know. First, I'm
going to run through all the new big
important features and after that we'll
talk about the big changes to the game.
For the first time in a long time, 12.1
may be a patch that isn't cursed by
world like. That may sound kind of
insane if you've been playing wild over
the last decade, but no, I think it's
credible. And it's because world bosses
are getting a total overhaul and the new
flex mythic difficulty added in 12.07 is
staying around. And believe it or not,
these things are actually connected. So
now world bosses are being moved into
something called layers. You know, like
an exit is layer. Now the wild cast
episode was a little light in
explanation here, but the screenshot
tells us exactly what we need to know.
Layers exist all over the world just
like delves do, but inside the layer you
will find a boss. A boss that has got
world normal [music]
heroic and mythic difficulty. And the
mythic part is confirmed to be 15 to 25
player flex. Now, of course, we're all
kind of waiting with baited breath to
hear what kind of gear these things are
going to drop, but I think one thing is
for sure already.
This, at least in concept, is absolutely
fantastic. You see, world bosses have
almost always been the number one cause
of world lag in WoW. So, keeping them in
instances will fix that. And it fixes
another problem. For a long time, world
bosses haven't really been bosses,
right? The sheer amount of chaos and
sometimes lag means that they barely
have gameplay that you end up paying
attention to. So, hopefully here, with
Blizzard adding difficulty and actually
having an amount of players that they
can design the boss for, well, hopefully
that means that these will be real,
actual bits of content. I mean, imagine
instead of mindlessly zerging a world
boss in reset, it's something your guild
maybe knocks out as a warm-up in raid
night. And for actual rewards as well,
not gear that'll just be replaced near
[music] instantly. And it's actually
Final Fantasy XIV's trials that come to
mind for this, or maybe field encounters
from Bozja. And what it should
ultimately mean, if it's successful, is
that going forward in the future,
whenever we hear that there's a new
world boss, instead of not caring and
turning our brains off, it'll actually
[music] register as a real, meaningful
bit of content. That's a huge change
from how WoW's been run, and thankfully,
it's not the only major change.
Our new zone might be a patch island,
but it actually looks, well, a little
bit juiced. Looks pretty cool. So, it's
called the Coil Isle, and it turns out
it's much bigger and much deeper than it
appears to be from the outside for
pretty neat gameplay reasons, which I'll
get to in a little. But, one of the
biggest with the past is it's got its
own progression system. Now, borrowed
power is a dirty word as of late, but
when it's used properly and in specific
zones, it can give those zones
longevity. And as much as there could be
skepticism, I think it's a bit like
gearing, where a bit of content may be
impossible, but then you do some
progress, and then the content becomes
possible. That type of progression
sparks the feeling that RPGs are pretty
much famous for. Now, all Blizzard have
shown us so far is a way to reduce the
venom damage, but it seems there's a
whole lot more to unlock. And if they
can nail the joy of picking up quality
of life upgrades over time and effort,
importantly, then I think this could be
one of the more fun patch zones we've
had in a while. And that's especially if
the zone is as dangerous as the
venom-soaked island of cursed snakes
sort of looks [music] to be in the lore.
But where this one gets more interesting
is the inside part. The inside is a
giant cavern full of temples called the
Vaults of Atal'tech, and there are a
series of public events that lead up to
a boss event in there. Based on the
wildcasts, it seems that stuff can get a
little bit more on the hard end. Turning
to the outside of the island though,
there's something pretty cool called
curse surges. These spawn in rare elites
to kill. Now, I normally roll my eyes
and say there's nothing unusual to that,
but what's neat is a new thing. Beating
those elites will temporarily open up
cursed fishing and envenomated
gathering. So, I guess that's Blizzard
trying to spice up gathering a bit for
this patch. Definitely keen to see how
that feels and if it's in secret a bit
of a cool anti-botting measure. We'll
have to see. Now, the good news is the
public test realms are already up, so
we'll soon see how the zone and the
progression feel. And when we do, we'll
report back. Certainly though, it
doesn't look like a run-of-the-mill
patch zone [music] from what we've seen
so far. But of course, there's far more
to get to in this video. So, next, let's
knock out a big new feature that's
genuinely great. [music]
This may be one of the most important
fixes in the history of World of
Warcraft, and it is the Discord
integration. It's here, and it looks
perfect. Basically, you can link up a
Discord channel to your guild chat,
which basically means that you can talk
with people who are outside of the game
without having to alt-tab. Or of course,
[music] vice versa. You're able to reach
people who are in game even if you're
out and about in your phone. And as you
see here, you can have Discord messages
appear as your actual guild chat, or if
you want, you can separate it out into a
guild Discord window. Honestly, this is
kind of nuts to me. Blizzard correctly
identified that guild chats have mostly
been replaced, and instead of fighting
it and trying to lock us into guilds
further, they've accepted it and they've
came up with a great idea. And they've
also followed through with some niche
concerns, too. It doesn't support
Discord server profiles, but you can
choose to have the wow side see your
character name [music] instead of your
Discord name, which of course offers
identity control, which will be a super
important thing for role-playing guilds,
as well as guilds you're maybe um not
super super close with. And then in
terms of controlling config, settings
for this are on the guild leader's side.
Now, we're not sure if you can see
Discord messages in regular guild chat
even without connecting your Discord,
sort of in the way the guild chat stores
messages you are not online to see, but
we'll at least test it once it's up and
uh make sure. I know plenty of people
don't want to be forced into Discord
use, given say the age verification
nightmare going on. That's why it would
be good to test that. And finally for
this feature, the config and admin
stuff, of course, resides with your
guild leader.
Very much in keeping with the theme of
venomous snakes and poisoned water,
Blizzard have added in new tools to help
you, the extremely toxic in game.
I kind of joke, but it is actually quite
cool. They're updating pings. So, now
you can actually ping your abilities to
communicate your cool downs to the
group, but more importantly, you can
ping your health bar, which basically is
a yes, I need healing button, or if
you're one of the elderly, maybe the
medic call from TF2. Now, it definitely
will be used for evil and for trolling,
but all that said, I think pinging the
defensives or big cool downs are ready
will be genuinely useful for guilds.
It's not as easy as having an add-on
that tracks them and does all of that
automatically, but it is a lot more fun
and a lot more intentional. And that
intentionality probably means that if
someone is sharing something, it will
actually matter. Now, speaking of cool
downs, we've got huge news for the cool
down manager. It now supports trinkets
and consumables. Took a while, but
thankfully that's finally in. And
speaking of something finally being in,
healers [music] can now customize the
buffs that will show on their group
frames, and they can even add in visual
alerts like flashes. It's definitely
taking longer than any of us would have
liked, but you know what? Credit to the
Blizzard UI team, they're certainly
marching on.
Time for another feature we would have
liked earlier, housing exports, or as
Blizzard have cleverly called them,
blueprints. This is pretty much awesome.
Basically, [music] you'll be able to
import and export house codes. So, it's
that feature that they promised, and
when you do, the import and export will
be complete with a fully descriptive
list of what items are in the list, what
you're missing, and support for
different types of exports. Those
exports being rooms, whole houses, and
whole exteriors. And actually, you can
also save these like you would talent
layouts, so you can swap between them
with ease. And on top of that, if you
just want a clean slate, there is now a
full reset button, so that's a hell of a
lot less faff than having to delete
everything manually. Another much
requested feature they've added is pets.
You can stick a pet bed down, you can
choose which pet owns that bed, and then
they'll just roam around your house. And
it's not just one, it will support
multiple pets. So, I'm sure someone out
there will find how many it takes to
break a housing instance. Lastly for
housing then, at least from what's been
announced, I am hoping there'll be more,
but we do know there will be new
endeavors. That was one of the major
complaints, there just wasn't enough of
them. So, this patch will be adding four
more, the centaur, a manny, tortollans,
and kobolds. Now, on top of that,
there's a few other things. The housing
level cap is raising up to 12. Blizzard
are streamlining some of the dyes, but
really, blueprints are the big ticket
item here, and rightly so. I think
saving your progress is the unlock that
the wow housing system needs to be
basically thousands of times more
usable. Cuz if you go and put in the
time into building something really
cool, you don't want to then feel like
you're locked into only using that thing
because, well, poof, it's gone. That's
what the old system mandated, and that's
now fixed.
Before I get to PvE content, there's
something even more shocking, PvP but
without one of the Ps. And I think that
after the training grounds feature, this
was kind of inevitable. There's going to
be an arena version of the training
grounds, which means that you can
practice arena against bots. Now, given
how PvP doomers seem to be right now,
the doomy-est that I've ever really seen
them, and for a whole lot of good
reasons, I don't know if this will
actually help the problems PvP people
are facing. So, hopefully more love for
them is on Blizzard's radar because it's
almost the only group of players left
feeling just not really served properly.
But, speaking of being served, well,
there is going to be a new season of
WoW, and that actually means a larger
serving of content than we've been used
to.
I hope you're sitting down for this one
because in patch 12.1, something
shocking is going to happen. There's
going to be
a new eight-boss raid, which is really
not shocking at all. Uh the Venomous
Abyss is the new raid, and it's Blizzard
taking a bit of a break from Midnight's
crazy three-raid experiment thing,
though I don't think that's because it
didn't work. I think that for this, they
probably just want to keep it simple and
focused on the actual patch island. All
that we know right now is that Ula'tek
is the last boss, and this footage shows
a whole lot of snakes, lots of teeth,
and green spell effects. Pretty nice.
And it's also surprising just how much
troll architecture feels right for this
raid. Well, shouldn't be surprising. It
is a troll raid. I more [music] mean,
damn, they have executed it perfectly.
So, that's all pretty good, but there's
actually a lot more. First, we're
getting a new dungeon as well, and
that's not usually a guaranteed thing
when it comes to getting a major patch.
This one is called the Altar of Fangs.
And while we're on the topic of
dungeons, the M+ rotation has already
driven some people little mad. I kind of
understand why. It's mostly because of
Temple of Sethraliss and King's Rest.
BfA dungeons are not everyone's
favorite. There's also Ruby Life Pools,
and and the four Midnight dungeons that
were not in season 1. And while lots of
this skepticism is fair, usually when
dungeons come back they do get changed
quite a bit, so let's hope that's
happening here. Moving on to delves
though, we've got an impressive
offering. There's three of them. Now,
one is a season 2 nemesis who, believe
it or not, is a snake man, though not a
naga and not a sethrak. Appears to be a
new kind of snake man entirely, which I
imagine we'll be introduced to soon. The
existing delves are also getting new
variants as well, so more than we are
used to for delves. Then, with the price
system, there will be updates for season
2. That's going to mean some new hunt
targets, new affixes, and most
importantly of all, new astalor voice
lines.
Perhaps the largest feature many will
feel is on gearing. Now, one of the
biggest frustrations my guild has had
for quite a while now is that raid gear
kind of sucks. It's faster and easier to
gear through mythic plus, so a lot of
the time we end up out-gearing the raid.
Not in 12.1 apparently, because they've
buffed the hell out of gear. Where the
drops themselves are the same, but the
raid track in the vault is now a full
tier higher.
This is huge. It means that myth gear
will be something you can earn from
heroic [music] raid vault. Now, you
might be wondering what that means for
myth raid vault. Well, the good news is
that it will just drop fully maxed out
gear instead, so that'll actually save
you myth crests. Now, rather shockingly
to me, bonus rolls, which were of course
added back into the game in patch
12.0.5, well, those are actually
sticking around. You'll be able to pick
up a void core as a vault reward right
away. And then, on week eight of the
patch, you'll start getting them
directly as well. So, basically means
Blizzard are locking in bonus rolls as a
part of wow's gearing, and I think those
bonus rolls, because they do guarantee a
bit of loot, are actually a fantastic
backup option from the great vault.
Pretty neat. As is the change that on
week eight, instead of having to do a
quest for them, you'll actually just
start getting them directly. So, there's
no need to unlock, there's no quest to
do or anything like that. Otherwise,
they work the same as always, but with
one key improvement though. Raid rolls
don't cost two anymore. That was kind of
weird, I guess. Then, there's the
Ascendant upgrade items. Those are
making a return as well. The new
Ascendant Venom Cores will drop from a
bunch of sources and upgrade your
weapons, trinkets, and now necklaces at
a rate of 10 Cores per upgrade. And then
lastly, on the gearing front, the
Catalyst will no longer change the
secondary stats or remove special
effects from the item that you catalyze.
That means the gear you choose to
catalyze is actually important now. I
don't think it'll matter that much in
the earlier weeks, but certainly as you
go on, recatalyzing a bit of tier once
you can maybe put in some sort of nice
bonus effect, well, that could actually
work. So, pretty neat.
The last important thing, at least for
now, is class changes. We'll dig into
every class later as we always do, but
for now, here are some of the huge
sweeping ones, like the usual health and
incoming damage buff that we get every
season, which is essentially Blizzard's
attempt to stop spike damage issues,
which can be a real bastard for healers,
and they can make the game design side
of WoW not really work as well. But
history certainly shows us that sort of
thing helps, but is not a overall fix to
the problem. Now, there are some unusual
changes though, as well, like DPS
cooldowns getting nerfed. Turns out
Blizzard totally agrees that all of your
damage being inside cooldown windows
makes the damage you do outside of those
windows feel massively frustrating. And
of course, it does mean that if you do a
little bit of a whoopsie in your damage
window, well, um you should feel a
little bit less punished. Now, this is
being done on a spec-by-spec basis
instead of being something sweeping,
[music] so I don't have any big number
for you, but I can at least tell you
that it will impact Unholy, [music]
Devourer Windwalker Elemental and
Ret. For now, at least. Blizzard may add
more to the list. One last thing before
I go and dive into the PTR, and that is
on the raid story. The raid story is
definitely not directly related to the
main thrust of our drama in the world
soul saga, but it is kind of related and
Blizzard's blog post did promise us more
Alleria where specifically he'll be
chasing down Xal'atath cuz yeah, I
suppose it only took him a few months to
remember that his parents were slurped
into a big voidy leyline thing and and
disappeared. But overall what we're
looking at here is game system updates
that seem very strong, plenty more
content, more content than I would have
expected and while we can't say that the
world content is really that much better
yet, I think moving world bosses into
their own instance
>> [music]
>> is maybe the most exciting thing within
this patch cuz for such a long time
world bosses have absolutely blown and
with a feature like this, I suppose we
can have bosses like say Gruul or Onyxia
as a normal thing in the game moving
forward. That would be fantastic. And
just think about how Blizzard puts
effort into making world bosses for
every major patch and most of the time
players really don't give a about
them. Here, they'll register as actual
content cuz you can do them on
difficulties that'll actually mean the
mechanics matter. Seems pretty cool to
me especially in how it's layered across
all of the other world content
improvements and just improvements we've
got with Midnight. So while Midnight has
been a bit of a bumpy weird expansion in
some ways, I think the core of what
they're doing here looks pretty great.
I'd love to know what your favorite
announced feature is. Mine is certainly
layers and blueprints and if any of this
has you excited to play again, check out
this video next. It's about the leveling
changes that literally just hit the game
a few days ago. I got to say they're
really awesome, they're really fun for
your alts and you can find out about it
with a video link that's about to
appear.